


Venus in the Sky with Rhinestones

by Dawnwind



Series: Sequel to Venus on the Half Shell [2]
Category: Starsky and Hutch - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-20
Updated: 2011-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:37:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Starsky-Hutchinson clan have one more member, Lisa Graham. When she mentions marijuana to Starsky, it starts an investigation into drug use at Marshal Center.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

Starsky came half awake to the sound of crying, wretched sobs from the hall, and punched the body in the bed next to him. "Your turn to feed the baby," he muttered, burrowing back down into his pillow to retrieve the tail end of the dream involving the Torino and a some hot and heavy make-out scene in the back with…

"Starsk, we haven't had a baby in five years!" Hutch grumbled from under the blankets.

Starsky leaned over to peer blearily at the glowing face of the alarm clock, abandoning all hope of the fantasy necking. He shoved back the covers. "It's three-fucking-o'clock in the morning."

"Who's crying?" Hutch said without opening his eyes. "Not Venus."

"Lisa—again." The anguished cries didn't even sound like the baby the Starsky had adopted five years ago.

"Da-dee." Five-year-old Venus stood resolutely in the doorway of their bedroom, her favorite one-armed doll dangling from her fist. "Lisa's crying. She woke me up!"

"We heard." Hutch groaned, sitting up.

"I'll go." Starsky pulled on a sweatshirt in deference to the late autumn chill in the house. Served him right for trying to lower the electric bill by turning down the heat at night.

"I can sleep with Papa." Venus said sleepily, a wrinkle from her pillow imprinted on one milk chocolate brown cheek.

Starsky grinned despite his sleepiness. He'd never figured out why Venus had designated Hutch as Papa and himself as Daddy, but whatever kept things straight in a household with two male parents was great with him. Four kids, a mate, one dog, two cats and a mortgage. After he was shot in 1979, when the police department appointed psychiatrist asked him where he expected to be in five, six, seven years, he would have never, ever have imagined his future anything like this.

Hutch hauled her into the space Starsky had vacated. "You want any help?" he asked his partner, while Venus cuddled in close.

Lisa's crying had diminished to anguished sobs. Starsky shook his head, trying to wake up sufficiently to deal with the miserable girl. "You gotta be up before six for that drug task thing," he told Hutch. "At least I don't have a class to teach at Marshal Center until later in the morning."

Hutch didn't really look like he was going to get out of bed, Starsky noted, allowing himself a little bit of self-pity. "Lunches all made. Thursday is Poptart day for breakfast, and then maybe I can grab a nap." It was a rare day that he got the always-hoped for nap.

He found Lisa Graham, the newest member of the Starsky-Hutchinson household, huddled in the hall, curled around the giant stuffed panda that she always slept with. Captain Dobey had given her the black and white toy for her 19th birthday ten years before, the day after Lisa was brutally raped in the back of a bus. Starsky was always surprised that she apparently didn't connect the toy with the horrible day, because he certainly did. Lisa's seventy-five pound Doberman, Chester, lay with his head across her lap, and a sorrowful look on his face.

"Lisa, sweetie." Starsky gathered her, panda and all, into a hug. Helping her stand, he said, "It's cold out here on the wooden floor, how 'bout we get you back to bed?" Chester woofed softly, following closely after them.

"Why, Dave?" Lisa cuddled the panda, holding tightly to Starsky's hand. "Why did my mommy die?"

There was the hardest question of all, and one he hadn't found an adequate answer for yet—not in the thirty years since his own father had died. In an odd quirk of fate, Jakob Starsky had died in November, 1957, exactly the same month, but not to the day, that Lisa was born.

"That's the eternal mystery, Lise," he whispered. Starsky led her into the bedroom Lisa shared with Venus. A moon-and-star nightlight cast a yellowish glow across the wooden floor so that Venus' ruffly pink princess bed was barely visible. The left side of the room had been transformed into a near identical version of Lisa's room in her childhood home. The same candy stripe bedspread covered the twin bed and a brown wooden dresser held her clothes.

"Mommy always tucked me in," Lisa said, climbing under the covers. "Why can't she come back?"

Starsky pulled the blankets up, stuffing Harold–the-Panda in next to her. Mitzi Graham had died very suddenly of a heart attack two months earlier in September, leaving her twenty-nine-year-old developmentally delayed daughter completely alone. Luckily, Starsky and Hutch had been listed as Lisa's guardians in Mitzi's will ever since the rape in 1978.

"I just keep dreaming about her," Lisa said in a tear-soaked voice. "I found her in her bed."

"I know, sweetheart," Starsky agreed, stroking her white-blond hair. "That was scary. I'm so glad you called me and Hutch. So glad." Lisa's garbled phone call was seared into his memory, coming in the middle of one of the usual, chaotic mornings around their house. She'd been sobbing uncontrollably and Starsky hadn't understood one word in five, but her 'Mommy won't wake up!" had galvanized him. He and Hutch had piled Venus, and their two adoptive sons, David and Steven, into the car and driven over to the Graham house to find that Mitzi must have died of a heart attack during the night. Trying to make Lisa understand what had happened was a difficult and ongoing process.

Bringing her into their home was a foregone conclusion. For the first month, Lisa had been profoundly depressed, but she was starting to act more like her old bubbly self. Starsky suspected that putting her into the same room with Venus had been not only a necessity, since the house had no more bedrooms, but an inspired choice. Venus adored having an older sister and Lisa loved having someone who looked up to her.

"Why don't you tell me another story about her?" Starsky urged, perching on the edge of the bed, almost wedged in against the bedside table. "Give me another one of your favorite times with your mom, it'll help me fall asleep." It never had lulled him back to sleep yet, but it seemed to work wonders on Lisa.

"She was in her bed and she wouldn't get up!" Lisa's voice raised into another wail.

Starsky pulled Lisa against his shoulder. "That was the scariest thing that could happen."

"I needed to go to work!" Lisa insisted, with a sob. "It was on a Tuesday. Tuesdays I have oatmeal for breakfast, with a banana and milk, and I put on my uniform and work at McDonald's early."

"You almost always have oatmeal for breakfast."

"Oatmeal on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—but not Thursday." Lisa perked up, sitting straighter to wipe her damp face against Starsky's sweatshirt. "Not Thursdays at Dave's house," she sing-songed. "We have a new routine, schweetheart." Her mimicry of his delivery was flawless. "Poptarts. And my favorite flavor of Poptarts is cinnamon."

"The woman has taste," Starsky said to Harold-the-Panda. "Cinnamon is by far the best flavor."

"Mommy sometimes put cinnamon on my oatmeal, but not on Tuesdays. Tuesdays, I had a banana," Lisa said quietly. "And Sundays, we'd have breakfast in bed, with the newspaper. She made cinnamon toast. Hot—can't eat it right away or it'll burn the roof of my mouth. I had to wait, and that was hard!"

"Don't I know it, schweetheart." Starsky yawned widely.

"I'd read the comics," she went on, only the occasional hitch in her breathing left of her tears. "Peanuts and Beetle Bailey and Garfield, and save my favorite for last. First eat the cinnamon toast and then read…" She paused and Starsky could almost see her cuddled up next to Mitzi, blond heads bent over the funny pages. "Rick O'Shay."

"Rick O'Shay!" Starsky remembered the pun laden Western strip with delight. "Hipshot Percussion and Gaye Abandon."

"But they don't have Rick O'Shay in the paper anymore," Lisa sighed, rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand. She snuffled and leaned against Harold-the-Panda. "No more. It's gone, just like my mommy."

"You know what?" Starsky snapped his fingers. "Someday, you and me will go down to that used bookstore over near where Hutch used to live, on Ocean. I bet they'd have reprints or a comic book of Rick O'Shay."

"Really?"

Starsky felt something constrict in his belly. If that damned store didn't have a book of the comic, he'd find a bunch of back copies of the Bay City Chronicle and Xerox strips of Rick O'Shay himself. "Really," he promised. "Now, you snuggle down and go back to sleep. Tomorrow—well, actually today— is Poptart day, and then you have knitting class with Maggie at Marshal Center."

"I like knitting," Lisa said. "Cross over, pearl one…." She drifted off and Starsky leaned back against the wall, feeling himself slowing, relaxing into a doze. "Dave?" Lisa asked groggily. "Are you sleeping?"

"No, no, not me!" Starsky gave an exaggerated stretch and sat up straighter. "You still want to talk?"

"In the funny papers, Hipshot really isn't a bad guy, is he?" She sounded worried, but he had a suspicion that she wasn't actually talking about a long-legged comic strip gunslinger.

"Sometimes he does the wrong thing, but he's always sorry in the end, and since Rick is the sheriff and his best friend, Hipshot can't be very bad, can he?"

"That's what I thought." Lisa nodded her head against the pillow which fluffed up her pale hair. "But there are real bad guys, aren't there?"

"Unfortunately, Lise. What are you thinking about?" He just hoped it wasn't a rehash of the rape after all these years. He was too tired to have a prolonged discussion about why that horrible incident happened to a sweet, gentle girl.

"Nothing," she said evasively. Lisa couldn't lie her way out of a paper bag.

"Nothing?"

"It's…" She was obviously drifting off, her words muffled by the pillowcase. "You know, Hipshot smokes. Smoking Mary Jane is the same as smoking a cigarette, and that's bad for you."

Starsky sucked in air so fast the old aches in his chest from Gunther's hit started up with a vengeance. If Lisa had told him that she had robbed a bank, he wouldn't have been more surprised. That she knew the slang for marijuana and was obviously aware of what to do with a joint shocked him to the core.

Lisa's mental age was not much more than ten or eleven, but she was a grown woman. What a lawyer at the rape trial had once termed "mental deficiencies" didn't equate to staying a child forever, even if she did still like stuffed animals. Starsky had grasped that years ago, when Lisa started dating a young man named Kevin Margulies. Kevin had Down Syndrome, and like Lisa, was working at a real job with the help of the staff at Marshal Center.

But knowing about marijuana?

"Lisa, what…" He shook himself, needing to be sharp. Where the heck had she learned about drugs? "Have you smoked marijuana?"

"A'course not," she answered with such affront that he backed off. "Smoking is bad, I told you that."

"Does Kevin?" he asked hesitantly, ready to separate the two immediately if that boy had led her astray.

"He has asthma!" she said derisively, as if that explained everything.

And in a way, Starsky supposed it did. Someone with asthma wouldn't want to add to their respiratory problems by smoking. Just like he had to be careful around cigarette smoke seven years after getting shot in the lung. "Did you see one of your friends smoking marijuana?"

"Dave, I'm sleepy," she whined, sounding so much like Venus that he smiled in spite of his concerns. "When are we gonna go find the Rick O'Shay comics?"

"Uh—not tomorrow, I mean today, Lisa," Starsky said absently, marijuana still in the forefront of his thoughts. "But soon."

"Good, cause…" Lisa yawned and pulled Harold-the-panda closer around her. "I'm gonna read 'em to Mommy up in heaven."

"That sounds good." Starsky rubbed the ache in his chest, watching as Lisa's breathing evened out. He sat still, staring out at the shadows. The moon-and-stars nightlight provided just enough light to turn Venus' abandoned bed into a monster out of some child's nightmare, mysterious humps of bedding and inky black voids lurking like danger just inches away.

Starsky scolded himself for letting such foolish fantasies take hold, and stood up. He'd know if one of his kids was taking drugs, right? He knew all the signs, had taken college courses on drug education and dealt with drugged criminals for years before he quit being a detective. Not to mention that Hutch was head of the Bay City police drug task force, for Christ's sake. The idea of Lisa, of all people, being exposed to marijuana scared him silly.

He was almost glad that the kids he and Hutch had adopted in the last five years were still young. Five-year-old Venus was in kindergarten and doing great, already starting to read and spell. Just thinking about her could make Starsky smile. When he'd first adopted her, he'd been terrified. What did he and Hutch know about a baby? What did they know about raising the mixed race little girl he'd found abandoned in a gas station? How would they handle the job? Now he understood that every parent grew into the role. That every new child entrenched him or herself in his heart and wouldn't let go. That no matter what some gossips might think, there was only good in this household—two men who slept together, and a growing passel of kids.

Starsky had found newborn Venus, so it was quite right that Hutch found their next two children, at the site of a horrific multiple murder. David, then six-years-old, had been protecting his dead mother and injured younger brother Steven after their abusive drug addict step-father shot them. Stunned by the fact that both children bore an uncanny resemblance to Starsky, Hutch couldn't resist helping them—and ended up adopting them legally. Because two men could not adopt children as a couple, Venus bore Starsky's name and the boys were Hutchinsons. Despite his early abuse, David was now ten and doing surprisingly well in fifth grade, although he was still a guarded, angry child.

As for five-year-old Steven, his progress was gained in minute increments. The doctors had diagnosed autism a full two years after Starsky and Hutch recognized how profoundly different Steven was from the other two children. He rarely spoke, and when he did, it was a weird mixture of made-up language and mimicry. He was compulsive to the nth degree, only content with exactly the same routines at all times. He wanted the same clothes, the same foods and the same toys, and the slightest things could send him into a rage that sometimes lasted for over an hour. Every once in a while, Starsky got a glimpse of just who Steven could have been if he hadn't lost a huge chunk of himself those horrible days after his father shot him, forcing then six-year-old David to go into protection mode. It was something David had never quite gotten out of.

Starsky stood up to go back to his own bed. It too cold for him to be standing in his bare feet on a wooden floor. Maybe he should turn up the heat? Even with the slight chill, he stayed, watching Lisa sleep. Around him, he could hear the sounds of the house at night—familiar and soothing. Chester woofed deep in his throat, making Lisa turn over with a sleepy sigh.

Starsky ran his hand down the dog's warm head and got a slobbery tongue on his wrist in return. "Hey, you. Quiet. Everybody's sleeping but me."

Chester nodded his doggy head, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, and settled again at the foot of Lisa's bed with a contented snuffle.

Looking though the door to the boys' room, Starsky could just make out two curly heads on the same pillow. No matter how many times he or Hutch tucked Steven into his own bed, the boy ended up in David's. Starsky braced himself on the doorframe and listened to them breathe. A long swath of light from the street lamps shone through the bedroom window, illuminating the curve of Steven's cheek and the narrow line of David's jaw, so like his own.

He was happy—most of the time. Sure, he'd grumble and grouse at the kids. Yell at Hutch because Hutch would yell right back at him, and then tumble him into bed when they had the first opportunity, but it was an amazingly good life. After he quit the police force, he'd gotten a physical education degree which led to a promotion as head of the athletics department at the Marshal Center and a part time position as the local manager for the Special Olympics basketball team. He didn't investigate crime any more—Hutch was the one in law enforcement now, but quite often, Starsky found that he didn't really miss being on the streets. He made a difference with kids and adults who had special needs, and that felt good.

Too tired to stay up a moment longer, Starsky headed back to the master bedroom and found Venus starfished across all the available space between Hutch and the edge of the bed. The girl was three foot six and only thirty-eight pounds but she felt like she weighed a ton when Starsky tried to shove her over. The cat, Bastet, tucked between Venus and Hutch, harrumphed her displeasure and arched her back. Starsky managed to shift his daughter on her side so that he could spoon in next to her.

But sleep didn't come. Between Hutch's intermittent snores, the deep, rumbling purr of the cat who curled herself into a ball right at Starsky's groin, and horrified thoughts of Lisa behind the gym at Marshal Center smoking weed, he couldn't doze off. A glance at the lighted clock just visible over Hutch's shoulder proved that it was 5:15. Hutch had to get up in fifteen minutes and there'd be no quiet in the house until he and Lisa left for Marshal Center at 10:30.

He groaned and pulled the pillow over his head which prompted Bastet to butt her furry chin against his arm and meow plaintively.

"Not you, too," Starsky grumbled under his breath. At this rate, it didn't matter how much health food Hutch tried to get Starsky to eat. He was going to die before he was fifty from lack of sleep.

As if alerted by Bastet's call, their other cat Isis appeared in that supernatural way of cats and pounced right on Starsky's full bladder.

"Fuc…" Starsky swore, cutting himself off because Venus was asleep beside him. "Off, off, I'll feed ya." Both cats leaped down from the bed, landing with soft thumps.

"Starsk?" Hutch rolled over, eyes at half-mast.

"Might as well get up, Blintz, your alarm's going to go off." Starsky laughed when the highly annoying buzz punctuated the end of his sentence.

Smacking the top of the alarm clock, Hutch stretched, his t-shirt riding up over an almost flat belly. Starsky watched for the sheer enjoyment of seeing Hutch on display. Just one more thing he would never tire of—looking at his beautiful mate.

"You get any sleep, babe?" Hutch scratched his crotch, which was something Starsky also very much enjoyed, even if it reminded him of very pressing needs.

Jumping out of bed to beat Hutch to the bathroom, Starsky nearly tripped over a cat. His fuck came out uncensored. "Nope, and I gotta talk to you about something," he said, making it to the toilet just in time.

Hutch followed him in and turned on the shower to let the water warm up while Starsky did his business. Starsky reached over and ran a loving hand down Hutch's sleep-warm back, and ended up getting kissed while a light spray from the shower misted his cheeks.

"Should have closed the shower door." Hutch laughed, wiping his face dry with the t-shirt he pulled over his head.

"It’s okay. I needed a wake-up shower," Starsky shook his head, flicking water out of his hair.

"We could…" Hutch said hopefully, now fully nude.

The offer was more than tempting, and with so little sleep, Starsky's willpower was weak.  
"You think they'll all stay asleep?" He stripped off his sweatshirt in one move.

"Venus? She pretends she's the princess who found a pea under her mattress, but she's really Sleeping—" Hutch tugged Starsky toward the shower stall.

"Beauty," Starsky finished, taking in the glorious sight of his lover. "Gimme a minute, will you?" He pulled the drawstring on his pajama bottoms, stepping out of them and into the curve of his lover's wet arms. "I missed this."

"What are you talking about?" Hutch leaned close, letting his long cock slide enticingly into the join between Starsky's thigh and balls. He ran the soap down the curve of Starsky's back, brushing a kiss to his cheek. "We did this…"

Starsky turned, claiming the kiss with his mouth, breathing into Hutch, even if that meant practically drowning in the downpour of the shower. "Weeks ago," he managed, sputtering. "I can't keep looking up at you; I'm getting water down my throat."

Starsky grabbed the soap, lathering Hutch's belly and sides, avoiding his crotch. As much as he wanted to have a quickie, Venus was in the next room, and the bathroom door wasn't even closed all the way.

"Wimp." Hutch rocked into Starsky with a glint in his eye, grinding his hips with the finesse of a pole dancer, but he didn't go any further. Closing his eyes, he sighed when Starsky washed him down, the hot water plastering his pale hair against his skull. "When does David have another sleepover with that kid Aiden?"

"Night before Thanksgiving," Starsky said, rubbing his hands one last time over Hutch's big frame. He blinked water out of his eyes, trying to come up with a way to get rid of the kids for a couple hours so that he and Hutch could have some adult time. Aurie-Mae, the mother of Venus' best friend, was always happy to have one more child around the house. "Think we can foist Venus off on Aurie-Mae?"

"And Lisa works late at McDonald's on Wednesdays." Hutch shut off the faucet with a something that looked like regret. "That just leaves Steven."

"Rosie Dobey would watch him." Starsky waggled his eyebrows and grabbed two towels off the rack. "We gotta do this."

"We have to," Hutch agreed with a quick, chaste kiss. "I don't know how much longer I can hold out."

"Keep that in mind, big guy." Starsky pretended to knee him in the nuts and danced out of the way of Hutch's grab, holding his towel out like a matador.

A child's ear piercing shriek ended their high-jinks.

"Damn," Hutch said softly, jerking a clean t-shirt on. "I'll get Steven."

"Boxers?" Starsky pointed.

Hutch jammed on the underwear and ran down the hall. Starsky sighed, donning an old pair of jeans and his favorite shirt, a freebie promotional that said, Need a Hutch? Dave's Nude Furniture on Washington. The first time Hutch ever saw Starsky wearing the bright red shirt, he'd thrown a boner like a teenaged boy. That memory sustained Starsky on many a trying day.

"Daddy?" Venus sat up, knuckling the sleep out of her eyes.

And so the day began.  
Next


	2. Two

Hutch brought Steven into the kitchen, freshly changed and smelling of soap, by the time Starsky was opening boxes of Poptarts. He was impressed that Hutch had managed to get fully dressed, with a knotted tie, no less, all while dealing with Steven in full autistic melt-down mode caused undoubtedly by a poopy diaper. David trailed behind them, dressed in jeans and a Crocodile Dundee t-shirt.

Hutch plopped Steven into a chair at the table that sat between the kitchen and family room, giving him a kiss on the top of his head. Grabbing the bread off the counter, Hutch shoved two slices into the toaster and peered into the refrigerator.

"Whatcha looking for, Golden One?" Starsky hip butted him just for the pleasure of a little more Hutch time.

Venus turned on her favorite morning music, a well used Disney tunes cassette, and did pirouettes around the breakfast table in a pink tutu, black leggings, a pink strapless t-shirt and a pink feather boa. She had a plastic, bejeweled tiara perched precariously on top of corn-rowed braids.

"Where's my lunch?" Hutch asked. He ran a distracted hand through David's dark curls, giving him a brief hug. "Morning, son."

"G'morning," David muttered, but his eyes lit up from the momentary comfort as if he'd been given an award. Starsky knew exactly how he felt. He was a beautiful child, guileless dark blue eyes, sharp little chin and dark curly hair, with an almost eerie resemblance to Starsky. Steven looked just like him. Other parents at the school always assumed that David was Starsky's son—despite the fact his legal name was David Hutchinson.

"I want a grape Poptart!" Venus called out above Snow White warbling that her prince would come. She spread her arms with dramatic flair. "And Snot wants grape, too."

"Steven," Hutch corrected automatically, sounding distracted.

David bent over his little brother, whispering something to Steven, ignoring Venus' dance routine. Both cats snaked around the boys, looking for food. The little kitchen seemed packed with people and animals, which was why Starsky had always been glad of the open floor plan of their house. The kitchen flowed into the family room without a wall between them, just the change from linoleum to parquet floor designating the different rooms. The dining table spanned the divide.

"Where's my lunch?" Hutch repeated, still staring into the fridge.

"If it had been a snake, it'd have bit you," Starsky said wickedly, pointing to the labeled lunch bags all in a row on the shelf of the fridge next to the milk carton. "You got a disgustingly healthy sprout sandwich from True Grains."

"Thanks." Hutch snatched the correct bag and stuffed it into his briefcase. He poured a thermos of coffee and then buttered the slightly burned toast Starsky rescued from the toaster.

Inserting Poptarts into the toaster, Starsky didn't think to tell Hutch about Lisa's knowledge of marijuana until the family room back door to the garage had already swung shut.

"Damn." Starsky contemplated going after him, but Lisa and Chester came into the kitchen, blocking his way.

Her hair damp from a shower, Lisa yawned widely. She went over to the refrigerator and peered in, almost exactly like Hutch had done. "I like orange juice!" she announced to no one in particular.

Grabbing the pitcher from the counter, Starsky poured her a glass, watching her gulp it down. Lisa appeared to have weathered the night's storm without any after effects, which was a damned sight better than the depressed girl she'd been the first month after her mother's death.

"Eat?" Steven asked, banging his spoon on the table. "Eat?"

Chester barked loudly for Lisa's attention, sending the cats out the flap in the back door. David retreated to the brown plaid couch in family room and turned on Rocky and Bullwinkle to compete with Venus' music. In seconds, the noise level went from airplane hanger to rock concert decibels when Steven screeched his displeasure from the excess of stimulation.

"Wish onna star!" Venus twirled around the room, singing along with Jiminy Cricket. It might be Starsky's imagination, but it looked like she deliberately danced in front of David's TV. David threw a sofa pillow at her.

"Guys!" Starsky yelled above the din. "Getting outta hand here!" He shoved hot grape Poptarts on plates. Steven's high-pitched screams vibrated off the walls. "Venus, turn the music off, it's David's day for his show."

His princess turned a displeased glare on him, her black eyes narrowed as if she was planning a retort, but then she dimpled and complied.

One battle avoided, so many more to come. Starsky groaned inwardly. Giving her responsibilities often made her feel grown-up. He shoved a plate at her. "Can you feed Steven, Planet?"

"'Course!" Venus curtseyed like the princess she was.

"I can make my own Poptarts!" Lisa announced, commandeering the box. "Cinnamon Poptarts, no oatmeal because we have a new routine, schweetheart. Poptarts on Thursday."

"Snotty," Venus wheedled above his ear-piercing squeal. "Don't you want some?" She broke off a piece and waved it in front of his face.

"Don't call him that," Starsky said, although it clearly went in one ear and out the other with Venus. The nickname had come from Steven's continuous crying as a baby. Despite frequent reminders to call Steven by his given name, Venus and David continued to use Snot.

Cutting off in mid-scream, Steven caught sight of the Poptart tidbit and awarded Venus with a rare display of actual eye contact, breaking out a beautific grin. He stuffed the pastry in his mouth. "More?"

Starsky stopped, just watching from his vantage point a few feet away so that he didn't disturb the communication. He never had the kind of success with Steven that Venus had. She seemed to hone in on his wavelength, typical child bonding with atypical. She could make him smile, could pierce his autistic wall, and gently bring out the sweet boy who hid underneath all the finger flapping and repetitive speech.

Even David, who adored his brother with a fierce, uncompromising love, didn't quite have the finesse with Steven that Venus did. The whole family was aware of this, and sometimes let the two five-year-olds work things out in their own unique way.

Starsky had even wondered if the odd fact that, despite being unrelated, both children were born on the same day and year made them some sort of psychic twins. More than once, Hutch had told him that his theory was hogwash and relied too heavily on the illogic of astrology. On those days, Starsky simply reminded him of the biorhythm gadget Hutch had once owned.

"Look!" Lisa announced proudly, holding her breakfast under Starsky's nose. "See, I can make Poptarts."

Starsky tore his attention away from Venus and Steven happily munching the remainders of their breakfast. "So you can, Lise. I'm proud of you. Why don't you sit down there next to your sister."

"Venus is my sister," Lisa crowed. "I like that so much."

On the TV, Bullwinkle proclaimed "Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat." Underneath Rocky's reply, Starsky could hear David muttering, "I'm so proud of you, I like that so much…" in a sing-songy voice.

"David," Starsky said sharply, with a mental groan. When David was in a nasty mood, watch out. He had claws that gouged if he was threatened. Probably a useful tool when he'd lived in a chaotic, hellish home cluttered with drug paraphernalia, but really difficult to deal with now that he was part of the Starsky-Hutchinson household. "What kind do you want?" He held up one of the Poptart boxes but selected an apple from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, too. Starsky waited, juggling the apple in one hand because he knew exactly what David's answer would be.

Glancing away from the TV, David's expression was one of total innocence, as if he hadn't been openly mocking Lisa just a moment before. Starsky could recall childhood photographs of himself wearing the exact expression David now had—especially when he'd been heckling his own younger brother, Nick.

"I hate Poptarts," he said flatly, turning back to the cartoon just as Boris Badinoff consulted Fearless Leader. "You know that."

"Then fruit, kiddo." Starsky thrust the apple into his hand. David was the pickiest eater of bunch. "Your bus will be here in…" He looked over at the clock on the family room wall, amazed that it was already past seven. Where did the time go?

"Lisa, if you're my sister, then you're a princess, too," Venus said from the table. She looked over her shoulder at her father. "Right, Daddy?"

"Right, Princess," Starsky said absently. "David, your bus'll be here in twenty minutes, did you do all your homework?" He lined up three book-bags, tucking bagged lunches into each one.

"Easy-schmeezy." David crunched into the apple, eyes glued to the TV.

"Am I Princess Lisa?" Lisa asked, as if this wasn't at least the tenth time in the last two months that she and Venus had had this conversation, by Starsky's inaccurate count.

Starsky glanced at the girls who were now engrossed in one of Venus' well-thumbed Snow White picture books. Since Lisa could read, she was the perfect foil for Venus who was just learning. Lisa would read the same book over as many times as Venus requested, and amazingly, Steven seemed to be paying half-attention as he spun his little sippy-cup up on one edge like a top.

Starsky bit into an untoasted Poptart and walked past the table to sit casually on the sofa with David, pretending to watch Rocky-the-flying-squirrel save Frostbite Falls yet again. "David, can I ask you something?"

"What?"

Long ago, Starsky had discovered that the way to relate to David was man to man. David did not bend easily, and he'd given his heart to Hutch. He tolerated Starsky like a wary adversary for Hutch's affections. Admittedly, things were getting better than they had once been, and Starsky hoped that some day, he'd earn a smidgen of David's love. "I know you'd recognize the smell of marijuana if you smelled it."

"Yeah," David said with just the right level of scorn and dismissiveness.

Starsky really dreaded David's teenaged years, and yet, he knew his mother would laugh and tell him that it was payback for his own youthful rebellion. Rachel Starsky adored her adopted grandson and had declared him a true Starsky the first time she ever laid eyes on him.

"So, have you ever smelled any on Kevin?"

"Kevin?" This got David's full attention. "Lisa's boyfriend? Of course not!"

That was a relief. Starsky was beginning to doubt his own powers of observation. "Good." He chewed the rest of his pastry with a frown. Rocky and Bullwinkle segued into a commercial for Frosted Flakes. Tony-the-Tiger declared them "G—reat!"

"Why?" David asked astutely. The kid was really far too smart for his own good. "You think Lisa and Kevin are toking behind your back?"

Wonderful, even David knew drug slang. Of course, he'd probably heard it in his infancy.

"No, but Lisa was asking me…" Starsky paused. David was only ten. No matter how much he'd been exposed to, he was still a young boy.

"And the Prince kissed Snow White…" Lisa read to her audience of two while the Dr. Pepper jingle played in the background.

"Lisa asked me if smoking Mary Jane was bad," Starsky admitted finally, looking squarely at the boy. If David knew anything, he gave nothing away. He was also one hell of a poker player.

David's eyebrows slid up and he grinned wolfishly. "Yeah, you can get a ticket for smokin' weed in California."

"Stop it," Starsky said simply, and the expression disappeared off David's face as if it had never been.

"I've seen…" David glanced across at the three sitting at the table, blue eyes opaque and unreadable. "I've seen this guy on the playground at school."

"A dealer?" Starsky asked faintly, his gut dropping to his knees. David and Venus attended Victory Street School, which was about a mile away from Marshal Center, on the same street. Now Starsky had two mentions of drugs—was there a new dealer working the schools on Victory Street? Lisa had never even been to David's school, but if there was drug activity there, Hutch should know.

David shrugged, such a normal kid reaction that Starsky smiled.

"I dunno what he was doing," David said evasively. "He was maybe from high school or older. I know him 'cause I've seen him with Jimmy Sweets' big brother."

That would be Brian Sweets, who was all of thirteen. "Is Brian using?"

David's lips folded in to a thin line. He shrugged again, this time cold and distant. He fiddled with a loose thread on his blue jeans, shifting his eyes back to the TV. The Pink Panther theme plinked delicately.

"David." Starsky took a slow breath, knowing better than to push him. "I know you don't want to rat on anyone, but if…Brian is in trouble, or this boy is selling drugs to kids in your school, Hutch needs to know."

David looked at Starsky out of the corner of his eye. "I can't…" he whispered, tracking Steven as he wandered over to the toy box in the corner of the family room and got out a handful of toy cars.

Starsky waited, knowing there was more. Steven lined the cars up in order by color, humming the staccato Pink Panther music.

"If Brian found out," David said, sounding miserable. "He'd punch out my lights."

"Daddy!" Venus called urgently, waving one be-ringed hand at him. "David's bus is here!"

Now that he paid attention, he could the insistent boop of the bus horn.

"Damn," Starsky swore under his breath. He caught David's arm gently. "I'm going to tell Hutch what you said—you know I have to."

"Yeah." David pulled away, grabbing up his denim covered backpack, and trudged out the front door.

Starsky watched him leave, Chester sending him off with a deep woof, and felt something vital and sad slide under his breastbone. When would he get under that boy's prickly armor? He'd been so close there. So close to some sort of trust and—a hope that David could work through all the obstacles his early life had set in his way, and emerge into the intelligent boy Hutch had always claimed that he could be.

Starsky dusted crumbs off his hands. There was still a lot to do before he left for Marshal Center. Damn, no time to have a nap today. He'd have to live on large doses of coffee, as usual, just the way he used to when he was on the force. That made him laugh.

"Okay, ladies and germs," Starsky said broadly. "Next one to school is Princess Venus of the Starsky clan."

"That's me!" Venus twirled around, miraculously avoiding Steven's perfectly lined cars.

"However, you cannot wear that top to school, it's November."

"Daddy," Venus whined. "It's my Ballerina-princess costume. I wore it for Halloween to school."

"And it was seventy-five degrees on Halloween," Starsky said, trying to get his mind back on the job at hand. Although David took the bus to Victory school, Venus had late-bird kindergarten, which didn't start until nine-thirty. Starsky drove her to school, since he had to deliver Steven to Bright Day, a special school for autistic children, by nine-thirty, too. Things would be so much easier if Steven could go to Marshal Center, but that was for high school age and above.

After getting the kids off to school, he had to swung back to the house to clean up before driving himself and Lisa over to Marshal Center. Starsky taught three P.E. classes until two-thirty on Thursdays, grabbing lunch when he could. Kevin's mom picked up both Lisa and Kevin at three thirty to bring Lisa to her job at McDonald's and Kevin to his at the movie theatre next door. Venus always went to her friend Contessa's house after kindergarten, and Starsky picked her up by four. Hutch generally got David from his after-school program and Steven from his daycare by five. A full day—when did he have time to talk to Hutch about marijuana? "It's fifty-five degrees today, with rain on the way. At least put a sweater over it!"

Dressing little girls was an art that was totally over his head. He was lucky that Venus seemed to possess a very girly spirit, or she would wear jeans and a t-shirt every day like he did. He'd mastered elementary hair braiding, but the subtleties of femininity eluded him.

"I know!" Lisa said with excitement. "Your sparkly sweater with the rhinestones on the front."

"Yeah!" Venus crowed. "Let's get it!"

That was how Starsky ended up delivering Venus to kindergarten in a white Christmas sweater with jeweled snowflakes over her ballerina tutu and black leggings, wearing red ladybug rubber boots on her feet. Starsky waved at her, watching her merge with the flow of children running into the school, feeling his heart follow her inside. How the hell did she do it? Shine those snappy black eyes at him and turn him into utter mush.

"Now it's just the two of us, Steven." Starsky glanced over his shoulder at the boy in the back seat. He edged the Honda Accord out of the line of vehicles letting off kids at the curb.

"Two o'us." Steven mimicked. "Two o'us."

"Just the two of us," Starsky agreed, surprised to realize that he was unaccountably happy. Worried, true. Harried, completely. But improbably content.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hutch surveyed the bounty of donuts on the side table of the Parker Center conference room and bypassed the lot in favor of the coffee pot on the far end. The brew smelled heavenly but when he took a hesitant sip, he found it bitter enough to strip paint off the old Torino.

"Captain Hutchinson," Lieutenant Marcus Deavers said formally, coming up behind him.

"Marcus!" Hutch greeted his old protégé happily. Marcus, an athletic six foot, two inch black man who used to work on Hutch's special team had passed the lieutenant's exam six months earlier. He'd recently been posted to the Sutter precinct. It was the first time they'd seen one another since. "What's with this Captain Hutchinson stuff?"

"Well, I can't call you 'loo' anymore." Marcus selected a chocolate covered donut and bit in.

"But I'm used to hearing it." Hutch drank more of the nasty coffee. He'd been a captain for less than a year himself. "So how is it being head of the Sutter precinct vice squad?"

"Not quite in the same league as when I was working with you as one of the elite band headed up by Lieutenant Hutchinson, but I'm getting used to being in charge." Marcus finished off the donut and licked chocolate off his long, brown fingers.

"You may not be under my thumb any more, but since I live in the Sutter district, I can still come by and check up on you."

"I'm surprised you didn't." Marcus laughed.

"Just letting you settle in first."

"I really want to be a part of the city's drug task force, though. The atmosphere out in the suburbs is very different from the inner city, but there's still a lot of drugs being sold, at the grade school level, even."

"That's the worst part," Hutch agreed, trying to decide whether he really wanted the rest of the vile coffee. "It's bad enough when the dealers are pushing to adults, but when they're influencing little kids, that really gets to me, and not just because I have elementary school aged kids."

"Speaking of which, how are David and Snot?"

"We're trying to move away from that nickname, and call him Steven." Hutch grinned. "David's great, doing really well in fifth grade. He excels in math. Steven started at Bright Day, a school for autistic children, and he's already made some fantastic progress, especially in his speech."

Marcus had known both children for a long time and had seen David change from angry, alienated child to a much more relaxed, if still guarded, boy who played Little League and rode a two-wheeler.

"I've been to Bright Day, for one of those Policemen are our friends things, but that must have been before Steven started there," Marcus said. "It's an amazing place."

"Steven's exhausting—he doesn't always sleep the night, and he still screams. But every once in a while, I see this sweet, artistic kid. He can draw any car he's ever seen," Hutch said, thinking about the wrestling match that morning. Steven detested waking up with a dirty diaper. After Hutch had gotten him out of the smelly diaper and dunked quickly into the tub, Steven had grinned and looked up at him with his dark blue eyes, just like David and Starsky's, sending a rush of overwhelming love through Hutch. So what if Steven didn't give him any hugs and kisses. His beautiful smile said it all.

"Those kids are lucky you found them." Marcus said. He turned to scan the crowd of police officers arriving for the city-wide drug task force conference.

"I'm the lucky one." Hutch indulged himself, recalling the past Halloween. One of those rare days when all the kids, including Lisa, had done something together— something so ordinary, so commonplace to all American children, but special for the Starsky-Hutchinsons. They'd all gone trick-or-treating. Starsky had stayed home to man the candy distribution while Hutch took the kids through the neighborhood. Hutch had never felt more like a regular dad, mingling with the other parents on the dark streets while the little Darth Vaders, ballerina-princesses and pumpkins trooped up to decorated houses for their treats. He blinked, and came back to the present, remembering his social skills. "Speaking of which, how is Kath?"

Marcus had been living with his former partner Kath Crenshaw for years and they kept assuring everyone that there was a wedding in the future. Apparently, however, their baby was going to arrive before the "I do's".

"Looks like she swallowed a basketball," Marcus said with a sappy grin. "Gotta be a boy the way he kicks."

"You know that for certain?" Hutch laughed. "I know from experience, ballet dancers can kick like a mule."

"Not listening." Marcus poked his fingers in his ears, laughing. "Marcus Deavers the Second is gonna be born before the end of the month."

"Call me the minute your daughter arrives on the scene."

Marcus rolled his eyes. "Hey, there's Larry Branford, I went to the academy with him. See you later." He waved at a small, slender man who was nearly bald, and disappeared into the crowd of men and women now surrounding the breakfast buffet to meet his friend.

As one of the speakers, Hutch had to sit in the front row of the auditorium, right below the podium. No chance of dozing off during the less interesting lectures that way. He took his seat, glancing through the printed list of topics and speakers.

The war against drugs had long been a driving force with him, but he was in the minority with some of the more aggressive officers who campaigned for tougher laws, more arrests and longer prison sentences. Exactly the opposite of what Hutch believed. Sure, he wanted the pushers off the streets and in jail, but that did not solve the problem. The prisons were rife with drugs—dealing and using continued inside as if the men weren't behind bars. As for the addicts, Hutch couldn't help but feel "there but the grace of God go I." He wanted better rehab clinics, with longer outpatient programs, more methadone clinics and better followup services for the recovering addicts going back into the world to jobs and family. This was an on-going fight—one that he didn't expect to win, but he had long ago vowed to continue the battle.

Scraping chairs and scattered chatter signaled that the audience was taking their seats. Hutch looked up, seeing his friend Police commissioner Paul Steadman putting on his reading glasses in preparation for giving his introduction.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the BCPD, LAPD, Santa Barbara PD and San Diego PD," Steadman said from the podium. "And also to those from further a field, like that place up north—anyone heard of it? San Fran…something?"

There was good-natured laughing and teasing comments in the audience aimed at the San Francisco contingency. Hutch glanced back, recognizing Lt. Linda Williams of the SFPD. He'd worked with her years ago, when she was undercover as a mobster's daughter. He made a mental note to go say hello at the break.

The morning passed by far quicker than Hutch expected. He was interested in many of the speakers, and surprised at some of the new ideas on how to keep drugs from getting to the dealers and being passed onto the addicts, including a proposal for alliances with police in Mexico and some countries in South America where cocaine and marijuana were often grown. However, that did not discount the large quantity of marijuana grown right in California.

Hutch gave his own presentation on how to ferret out the increasing number of growers who were buying low cost houses, fixing them up with grow lights and hydration systems, and turning suburban tract houses into marijuana greenhouses.

"One effective way of finding these growers is to enlist local neighborhood watch groups," Hutch said. "Which house doesn't put the pumpkin out at Halloween? And has lights on late at night even though nobody seems to live there? Or has comings and goings at strange hours?" He glanced out at his audience, nodding at the familiar faces. "In the last six months, we've discovered three mini-farms in the unlikeliest places."

He didn't have to consult his notes, he had this presentation memorized since he'd already given it to numerous local watch groups. "Neighbors tip us when they are suspicious, and then all it takes is a simple check with the electric company to see if the house is using more power than a usual family household. The last time, we not only kept thousands of dollars of marijuana off the street, but happened to arrive just exactly at the same time as the grower. He was more than a little surprised."

Laughter and applause greeted the end of his speech. Hutch nodded, feeling his cheeks flush.

"Still blushing?" Marcus Deavers teased, coming up to shake his hand. "I'd have thought a Captain would have gotten over that by now."

"I have the authority to demote you, Lieutenant," Hutch said loftily, but ruined the effect by cracking a grin. "I want to talk to a couple of people, but join me for lunch, if you can."

"Sure. I'm starving—I hope they have big burgers at that place." Marcus moved away as others approached Hutch. "Looks like you're popular, I'll see you later."

Hutch was surprised to see a large group of policemen and women, all waiting with questions and comments. He got caught up in talking to his peers and didn't notice the room emptying out until there was only one man left beside him.

"Hutchinson, this is exactly the kind of approach I've been looking for." Edgar Gonzales, a beefy man from the state's capital shook Hutch's hand. "Over in Sacra-tomato, we like to pretend we're a sleepy little burg, but the drugs are getting out of hand."

"I don't think any area is immune now days," Hutch said. He was hungry. The toast he'd eaten on the way out the door at 6:30 was too long ago for his belly to remember. He thought momentarily about the sprout sandwich that Starsky had packed. It would last until tomorrow. "Maybe we can talk about a joint effort over lunch?"

"I like your style, Hutchinson." Gonzales led the way to the restaurant.  
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	3. three

Starsky was frustrated, and really missed the feeling of contentment he'd had earlier. He'd tried twice to get a hold of Hutch, once just before his first P. E. class and the second time afterwards, both without success. Not only that, but one of his best players in the Zebras, his Special Olympics wheelchair basketball team, had broken his wrist. Lavirle Hawkins would be out for several weeks, just before a big game with the Tigers, the wheelchair team from Anaheim. They'd never win without Lavirle as center guard.

Then there was the puzzling behavior of two of the boys in his 11:30 P.E. class. It had never been the best time for vigorous exercise. The kids were always hungry and tired after a morning of academics, and even with a snack, often seemed to have low energy right before the lunch period.

On a cold, rainy day like this one, Starsky found that turning the gym into a dance hall worked wonders. The girls particularly enjoyed boogying around the wooden floor, twirling and spinning. Starsky managed to pair the kids off into partners for his favorite dance, the jitterbug. The big band sounds of Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B got the kids bouncing and swinging around—all except for Mikey Carter and Neil Chang. Because there were fewer girls than boys, those two had been paired together.

Watching them giggle and stumble awkwardly, completely off the beat, Starsky was struck at how oddly they were acting. Neil, compact and slender with a jagged scar on his forehead, was a generally sullen boy. Giggling was not in his repertoire. Mikey, red haired and chunky, was a follower, content to let Neil lead him into any situation.

Just before he put the needle back at the beginning of the song, Starsky held up his hand. "Okay, partners, start over from the top—you know the routine now. Those leading, right foot forward, those following, keep up with your partner!" The perfectly harmonized voices of the Andrews sisters once again extolled the virtues of the bugle-playing soldier. "We're gonna wow 'em at the Winter show," Starsky said above the music, tracking the dancers.

Marcella Nguyen and Donovan Jones were by far the best. Annette Bancock and Douglas Samuels tried hard, but neither had a graceful bone in their body. Starsky laughed, thinking of trying to teach Hutch the intricate steps to the jitterbug. Hutch always tripped over his big feet.

Myra and Jose Gomez, twins who never strayed from each other's side, danced looking down at their feet, which caused Tommy Allen and Mark O'Shea to run into them.

Over to one side, Mikey and Neil were no longer dancing. They stood close together, snickering. If Starsky didn't know better, he would have said they were drunk. Where would they have gotten any alcohol? There was no liquor allowed on campus, not even beers for the teachers.

Starsky walked casually over to the two as the first song ended. In the Mood started up with a fabulous trumpet riff. The dancing pairs just kept right on front stepping and back stepping, swinging their partners around every few sets. "Guys, whatcha doing over here?" he asked. "There's still ten minutes until the end of class."

"Coach Dave," Neil giggled.

Mikey raised his head. He swayed and almost fell over, a goofy, unfocused grin on his face. Now that Starsky was closer, he caught a whiff of something sickeningly familiar, and it wasn't teenaged boy sweat.

Damn.

The three a.m. conversation about marijuana slammed into him full force. Marijuana here? At a school for kids with disabilities? Anger boiled in his belly. Who was bringing it into Marshal Center?

"Neil, Mikey," he said, just barely controlling his temper. He knew they hadn't started this. Knew it in his bones. "Did you smoke something?"

"Uh?" Mikey, never quick on the uptake, looked like an inmate caught scaling the prison fence.

"Clove cigarettes," Neil said with conviction.

I'll bet, Starsky thought snidely. He took another sniff. Marijuana, all right. Not the sharp, overly sweet tang of the clove cigarettes that he'd smelled when he used to patrol the Bay City college hang-outs as a rookie cop. "Where'd you get these clove cigarettes?"

Now, even Neil looked squirrelly. "Found 'em?"

"Where?" Starsky asked patiently. In the Mood had ended and the Andrews sisters were crooning, "Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me…"

Starsky turned to take stock of the class. No one was dancing. Eight pair of eyes regarded him worriedly. "Hey, gang—just talking with Neil and Mikey, nothing to be concerned about. How about free dance for the last five minutes of class? Whose turn is it to pick a record?"

"Me! Me!" Several hands shot up.

Selecting Jose, because he never volunteered, Starsky said, "Pick your favorite music, Jose, and you're in charge for the next five minutes." Jose grinned widely, his asymmetrical face suddenly beautiful.

The spooky opening notes to Michael Jackson's Thriller pounded out of the ancient record player. Myra grabbed her twin brother's hand, shoving Jose into the prominent place, and he executed an awkward but recognizable moonwalk. Within minutes, the other kids were performing a fairly decent rendition of the zombie line dance from the MTV video.

Neil and Mikey hadn't moved, apparently unsure how to play this out.

That made three of them, Starsky groaned to himself. "Where'd you find the cigarettes?"

"My dad smokes!" Mikey said bravely.

So much for eschewing earthly vices. Mikey's father was a Baptist minister.

"You dad's an adult," Starsky said. "And I'm going to have to tell him, you know that? This is against school policy."

Mikey nearly melted into the floor, his eyes pleading. Neil crossed his arms over his chest with teenaged bravado. He'd once been a typical kid until a car accident scrambled his brain's circuitry. Starsky gave him points for acting like any other sixteen-year-old who'd ever been rousted by a cop. Surly, uncooperative and close-mouthed.

He surveyed the two boys with a mixture of emotions—the parent in him sending out anger and fear, the teacher providing concern for his students and worry about what the parents would say, and the ex-cop: rage at pushers who preyed on innocent kids.

Thriller ended with the eerie epilogue by Vincent Price.

"Okay, gang! Off to lunch with all of you!" Starsky shooed the class out, still looking at the two boys. "I'm going to talk to Mrs. Ladbrooke about this, and it would be easier for everyone if you told me who gave you the marijuana." He didn't mention the possible suspension from school, they were already frightened enough.

Mikey licked his lips and bit a cuticle. Neil shifted his feet, glancing at his friend. "Can't," he said finally.

Shades of David all over again. "Why?" Starsky asked even though he could still remember that confusing time when adults were the enemy and saving face with other teens was of utmost importance.

"Nolan Brice said we'd be 'rested if we did!" Mikey blurted out.

"Mikey! Shut up!" Neil rolled his eyes in disdain.

"Did you get the weed from him?"

"Weed?" Mikey asked, confused. "He had…"

"We gotta go to lunch." Neil grabbed Mikey's arm and pulled him away.

Starsky let them go, fairly certain he wouldn't get any more information from them. At least he had a name that he could tell Hutch. Nolan Brice—was he a pusher or just the middleman on campus? And why did that name sound familiar?

Pushing into Maryanne Ladbrook's office, Starsky was happy that she was free. His old friend was eating a tuna fish sandwich with her shoes kicked off and her stockinged feet propped on a low filing cabinet. "Starsky," she said through a mouthful of tuna fish, quite used to his barging in.

"Be glad you've already had some lunch because you made not be able to stomach more after what I have to tell you." Starsky sat down in the only other chair in the room.

"What has you in a lather? And without anything to eat. This is not the Dave Starsky I've known all these years." Maryanne pushed her glasses up her nose and finished off half of her sandwich.

Starsky held up the candy bar he'd grabbed from his desk stash. "Not really hungry myself. I just smelled marijuana on Neil Chang and Mikey Carter, and they basically admitted that they'd gotten it from a Nolan Brice."

The front legs of Maryanne's chair hit the linoleum hard. "What?" She took a long swig of diet Coke as if needing the stimulant. "Marijuana, here?"

"They acted stoned, but not bad enough to need the nurse, or anything. You can round 'em up when you call their parents."

"Thanks, Kemosabe," she said sarcastically. "I just can't get my head around drugs on this campus—"

"Do you know a Nolan Brice?" Starsky asked.

"He's…" She frowned, playing with a lock of long hair that had fallen out of the barrette holding the rest up on the back of her head. "He's the new art teacher's brother, I think. You've met Roland Brice, haven't you?"

No wonder the name sounded familiar.

"Just a hi and how are you in the break room." Starsky went into the narrow room where the staff could escape the pupils as little as possible. The home economics teacher, a grim-faced woman with a hard glint in her eye, chain-smoked, lighting her next cigarette from the butt of the last one. Spending any time in her company had Starsky gasping for breath and wheezing like the consumptive Camille he'd once claimed to be. "Never got to know him."

"Well, I can tell you that his drug test was clear," Maryanne said vehemently.

"You're drug testing the new hires now?" Starsky forgot to take a bite of his candy bar.

"Not reading the memos again, Mr. Head-of-the-Physical-Ed-Department? It's mandatory." She jammed her shoes on her feet. "And you wonder why I don't appoint you to any committees."

"I thank you for not putting me on any committees." He chomped down on the sublime concoction of chocolate, nuts and creamy center, finishing it in three bites. "I've accepted my limitations."

She gave a troubled laugh. "I should go have a word with Roland before the end of lunch period, so we won't be disturbed." Maryanne looked at the other half of her sandwich and then handed it over to him. She ate a couple of Fritos instead.

"Wait." Starsky waved the sandwich for emphasis. "If this guy is keeping marijuana on campus, or his brother is pushing, then the last thing we want to do is drive him underground. I really need to get Hutch involved in this." He bit down on the tuna and bread, his appetite roaring back in the wake of the candy bar.

"Damn," Maryanne swore softly. "I can't believe he'd…sell, give, whatever, drugs to mentally challenged kids."

"Lisa clued me in, inadvertently," Starsky said, trying to ignore the remaining Fritos Suddenly, his belly wanted an entire meal. Steak, preferably. "She told me that smoking Mary Jane was bad."

"Oh, God, Mary Jane…" Maryanne groaned and pressed into her temples with the tips of her fingers. "Maybe we need to do a section on drug prevention?"

"Not a bad idea, but this is already way out of hand." Starsky stole two chips from her. She swatted at him and finished off the remainder. "The thing is, Lisa isn't in any of Brice's art classes. I think Kevin Margulies takes some."

"Was Kevin smoking, too?"

"Lisa says no, and I believe her, but obviously a number of the older young people…" Starsky stopped because that just sounded odd but he didn’t know any other way to phrase it. Mentally challenged adults came to the center for job training, classes such as the knitting class that Lisa was taking, sports activities and general community. It had always been—up until now—a safe place for those who were often taken advantage of by so-called 'normal' society. "Anyway, the marijuana didn't just show up yesterday," he said. "It's been around for a week or two, at least."

"I'll talk to some of the other teachers. You use your 'in' with the cops, and please…" She balled up the chip bag and threw it into the trash. "Be discrete?"

"My middle name." Starsky placed his hand on his heart.

"Now I know you're lying." She rubbed her temple again with a grim expression. "I'd better get the boys out of the lunchroom first, and then call Reverend Carter and his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Chang."

"I've got a class in half an hour; hopefully, I can get through to Hutch. His conference must be done by now." Dealing with pushers, drugged teens and potentially uncooperative witnesses made him feel like he was back on the force.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Captain?" Shelly Androtti held up a bunch of pink while-you-were-out slips. "Your phone's been ringing off the hook." She sounded annoyed as if she wasn't being paid a decent salary by Bay City police department to answer his phone.

"Thanks, Shelly." Hutch flipped through the stack, ten by his count. Even if it was two calls an hour since she'd come in at eight a.m., that could hardly be described as the phone ringing off the hook. However, he caught Starsky's name on half of them. She and Starsky had developed an immediate animosity, which had not diminished in the six months she had been Hutch's secretary. He could only hope that her recent application to the mayor's office would be accepted. Starsky was not the only one who ground his teeth when he had to deal with her. "I'll answer these right away. Did you pick up the copy of Bunster Hawk's interrogation that I asked for?"

"I have to go down to records," Shelly said petulantly. "I was waiting until you got back, in case the phone rang."

In case her boyfriend, the vice-mayor called, Hutch filled in mentally, but he let it go. She just made him tired.

He dropped into the chair, dialing Starsky's number at the school at the same time. The last message, scrawled in Shelly's loopy writing, said "Very urgent" and was underlined three times. He could only imagine Starsky's temper after having to talk to Shelly not once, but five times, that morning.

"Hey, this is David Starsky, head of the Marshal Center's physical education department and coach for the Bay City Special Olympic Zebras. Leave me a message after the…."

The message cut off just as Hutch was about to say, "I'll call you later."

"I'm here!" Starsky yelled. "Hutch, where've you been?" He sounded rushed, and then yelled, "Hey, Williams, that's a foul. Hit the bench!"

Hutch winced, holding the phone away from his ear. There was a telephone in Starsky's office, right off the main gym. He could picture Starsky standing in the office door watching the game, the phone cord stretched to the limit. "Starsky, you knew where I was all morning. At the drug…"

"Yeah, well, we got drugs right here in Marshal Center," Starsky sing-songed to the tune of "Trouble in River City" from the Music Man. "And it starts with M and rhymes with…" he paused, then yelled at one of his players again. "Boswell, great jump-shot, pass it to Giovani!" He sighed, "Hutch, I dunno what marijuana rhymes with, but…"

"You've found marijuana there?" Hutch asked, stunned. "What are you talking about?"

"Just a minute," Starsky said, for once giving Hutch time to hold the phone a foot away when Starsky shouted. "Williams, you're back on the court for the last four minutes of the period. Everyone gets one free throw, and I'll see you all tomorrow."

"Starsk," Hutch said, trying to be patient. "Either tell me why you called or I'll talk to you at home."

"You called me," Starsky protested with typical Starsky-logic. "Anyway, I did tell you. Or, Lisa told me and I meant to tell you this morning, but you left too early. And then two kids in my early class were stoned."

"When did Lisa tell you?" Hutch groaned. "Never mind. I've got a meeting in five minutes with the commissioner, which is the only reason I left the conference early." He heard a distant bell blare and the thunder of a dozen teen-aged boys running off the basketball court. "I'll be there in…forty-five minutes, maybe an hour. Does that work?"

"Yeah, gives us an hour before I gotta get Venus." Starsky blew out a noisy breath. "You ever heard of a Nolan Brice?"

"Not off the top of my head, but I'll do a little research." Hutch wrote the name down. "You think he's involved?"

"According to one of the kids here, he is," Starsky said. "Told me that Brice had the marijuana, but I couldn't ask him anything else."

"How did Lisa know about the two kids in your class?" Hutch looked up when Shelly poked her head in and waved the file at him. "Starsky, I have to go. I'll be there…" He pulled out his pocket watch. "By three, I promise."

"I'll believe it when I see it, Cap'n," Starsky drawled. "I'm gonna nose around myself."

"Starsk!" Hutch yelled this time, but was answered by a click of a phone hanging up. "Damn," he said aloud.

"I don't think the police should be allowed to swear," Shelly said archly, and dropped the file on his desk, causing some of the pages to spill out.

"Hutchinson?" Paul Stedman pushed the door open.

"Oh, and the commissioner is here." Shelly smiled at Hutch's consternation and sashayed out.

"Paul!" Hutch said heartily, mentally cursing his partner at the same time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starsky sauntered down the hall of the Terry Roberts Arts building. It had taken many years, and a lot of fund-raising efforts, but between Terry's parents and Starsky, the Marshal Center had been increased by almost a third with this shiny new building. He liked to think Terry would have been proud of the place, bustling with developmentally challenged young people not only learning arts, but also life-skills and important job skills. This was where Lisa spent much of her time when Starsky was coaching—and where she hung out with her boyfriend Kevin.

"Dave!" Lisa said in surprise when he walked into the community room. She shot Kevin a guilty look and moved slightly away from him. Since they were sitting in a love seat, that wasn't very far. Starsky had the impression that she'd just given her boyfriend a kiss. "Kevin's mother is picking us up."

"Soon!" Kevin added, his wide blue eyes emphasizing the roundness of his chubby face. He was a good looking boy, with light brown hair and just a hint of a mustache growing on his upper lip. "I gotta get the theatre really clean, everybody always drops their popcorn and spilled sodas make the floor so sticky."

"Really sticky," Lisa agreed. "At McDonald's, it's the same. But I like making French fries."

"I just came down to wish you a good shift," Starsky bluffed. "Both of you. What's playing at the movies this week, Kevin?"

"Star Trek, the Voyage Home," he replied promptly, with pride. "It's really pop'lar."

"I'll bet." Starsky glanced around.

The room was a magnet for the over-twenties—a combination game room and gathering place where the clients of Marshal Center could meet other young adults with mental and physical challenges. There were several boys playing ping-pong, a couple of girls giggling together in one corner, and two or three other couples like Lisa and Kevin, enjoying time together under the watchful eye of a staff member.

"I gotta check out Spock and Kirk. You gonna give me a discount?" Starsky teased.

"I have to ask…" Kevin chewed his bottom lip.

"I'm just pulling your leg, Kev." Starsky winked at him.

"He thinks he's funny," Lisa deadpanned, but her eyes were merry.

"Lise! You wound me! I am funny." Starsky mimed being shot, which Hutch never thought was funny in the least, but he wasn't here. "Either of you seen Mr. Brice around?"

"He doesn't have a class now." Lisa pointed at the clock over the small snack bar. It was a digital clock, with huge numbers for those with vision problems. "It's two-thirty."

"Thanks for the update, schweetheart." He stressed his Bogey to make her laugh again. Far better than the tears and haunted expression from last night. "Go back to what you were doing, but wear protection!" he added as an afterthought, even though he really didn't want to know if Lisa and Kevin were really doing that.

"We're not having sex!" Lisa yelled loudly enough to evoke laughter from all around the big room. Kevin looked mortified.

Oh, God—how did he end up with an adult daughter, and how would he deal with this when Venus was a teenager?

"Venus doesn't get to date until she's thirty," he muttered. Brice's art classroom was just down the hall from the community center. There was a passable op-art version of the Mona Lisa, done in bright oranges, pinks and greens, on the door. Below that was a little flip card that said Mr. Brice is in/out, depending on which side was upright. Since the card hung cockeyed, so that both sides showed, Starsky turned the doorknob and poked his head in without knocking.

Typical art classroom—half a dozen tables, all liberally dabbed with splotches of dried paint, student art tacked up on all four walls, as well as masterpiece prints by DaVinci, Renoir, Michelangelo and Caravaggio. Shelves held paint, brushes and all the myriad supplies necessary to create beauty, but the room was otherwise empty. No Roland Brice or his pusher brother. Not that Starsky had actually expected to find them sitting down to pack marijuana into nickel bags, but he'd been hopeful that he could at least talk to Roland.

He sniffed. No cloyingly sweet odor of marijuana smoke, so Mikey and Neil hadn't lit up in the classroom. That was a relief. Starsky shook the lingering image of the entire life drawing class smoking pot and rendering weird nudes a la Picasso. Nothing in the room made his old cop sense tinge. It seemed like a regular art room. Sure, there were many places to stash bags of marijuana, but Starsky had little time and no official authority to search through every drawer and cupboard.

He sighed, and opened the classroom door just enough to peer out. The hallway was empty. Sliding through the gap, Starsky gently snicked the door closed, aware of the sudden rush of adrenaline through his veins. It harkened back to old times—Hutch beside him, that big cannon held high while Starsky went in low, snub-nose pistol in his fist, smashing through doors to get the bad guy.

No bad guy. No drugs. Just an ordinary, everyday art studio.

"Are you looking for me?" a voice asked.

Starsky had to dredge up rusty undercover skills to keep from jumping out of his skin. Damn! He hadn't even heard Brice approach.

"Hey!" Starsky grinned, going for casual and friendly. Had Brice seen him coming out of the classroom? He stuck out his hand. "I just wanted to come by, get to know you. Lisa, my daughter, Lisa Graham's boyfriend, Kevin Margulies, is in two of your classes, so I hear your name all the time."

"Kevin's a very good artist." Roland Brice nodded. "He's one of the students I want to feature in the upcoming show at the Halsing Gallery."

"Yeah, he told me," Starsky said, looking the art teacher over. Brice was tall and thin— six foot two, with an angular build that probably made bullies call him Ichabod Crane in high school. His bushy, sandy hair and mustache gave him a slightly distracted artist sensibility. He seemed harmless enough, although Starsky could imagine him smoking weed once in a while. Of course, back in Viet Nam, Starsky had toked a joint a few times himself. "It's next month, right?"

"December seventh through the fourteenth." Brice pointed to a sign that proclaimed the Halsing Gallery show, written in bright blue Magic Marker. "And the other students designed Christmas cards to raise money. Did you buy any?" He shifted the load of paperwork he had under his arm to be able to open the classroom door.

"Of course!" Starsky stepped aside so the man could get into his own classroom. "Two boxes. Got to support the arts."

"That's great. Hey, I have to get going to a meeting. I just stopped to drop these off." Brice shuffled the papers again now that the door was open. He dropped several sheets on the floor. "Oops, damn!"

"I'll get that for you." Starsky collected the scattered drawings. All were various angles of the front of the school, drawn with almost photographic realism. Each made Marshal Center look like an architectural wonder instead of the slightly worn around the edges place that it actually was. "Did you do these? These are fantastic! Maryanne should frame one to put in the front office."

"She was talking about the new campaign to raise funds in the spring, and I thought…" Brice shrugged modestly, taking the illustrations. He glanced at them and shoved them back into the untidy folder under his arm. "I thought maybe I could design a new brochure, to hand out to sponsors… Maybe I could even get it done by the December art show."

"Looks like you are the right man for the job!" Starsky slapped him on the back so enthusiastically that Brice almost dropped the entire armload of papers. "I'll put in a good word with Maryanne. I'm glad I ran into you. We could use more teachers like you."

"Thanks." Brice smiled, with a proud look in his gray eyes. "Good to talk to you… Starsky, is it?'

"That's me. See ya around the place." Starsky ambled down the hall, hands shoved in his back pocket.

He liked Roland Brice, which could be a problem if his brother ended up being a drug dealer. How would the school handle it if Nolan Brice had been handing out or actually selling marijuana on the school campus?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Where were you?" Hutch looked frazzled and slightly wilted around the edges. His blond hair was still as pale a moonlight, but there was definite thinning on the top—which he was very self-conscious about.

"Skulking, Cap'n Hutchinson, sir!" Starsky snapped off a sloppy salute, shoving the door of his office closed with his hip.

"What'd you do?" Hutch asked suspiciously, leaning against the wall and loosening his tie.

"Nuthin'. Honest, copper," Starsky said in a low, deep gangster voice that, improbably, always seemed to turn Hutch on. He planted a big wet one on Hutch just to get him more flustered.

"Why don't I believe you?" Hutch kissed him fast, and didn't act the least flustered.

"You turn into a newspaper reporter?" Starsky pushed his fingers between the buttons of Hutch's shirt, just because he could. Wouldn't lead to anything, but it was warm and very nice. "Where, what, and why all you can say?"

"I was going to say…" Hutch gave him one last kiss that took every bit of Starsky's attention and then some. "Remember when we didn't have to sneak behind locked doors and in shower stalls? When we had our house all to ourselves?"

"Keep your brain on next Wednesday," Starsky said reluctantly, backing away in case some student came barging in with an inane question that he couldn't possibly answer when his brain was oozing out because he hadn't been laid in weeks. "I already talked to Aurie-Mae this morning. She's good for taking Venus off our hands on the evening before Thanksgiving, and she'll take Steven, too, because he can play with her little ones."

"What's the name of her latest?" Hutch asked, wrinkling up his forehead.

"It's on the tip of my tongue." Starsky counted the children in the Delwerks family on his fingers. "Marquis, Princeton, Duke, Rex, Contessa, Amir, and the baby, Viscount."

"She's got her sights set high, that's all I can say." Hutch scrubbed a big hand across his face, almost successfully hiding his smile. "David is set with his pal Aiden for Wednesday night."

"And Lisa'll be at work. An evening to ourselves, Hutch—hours without kids." Starsky risked taking one more kiss, which Hutch seemed to appreciate quite a lot. He even licked his lips afterward. Starsky glanced at the clock, resigned that they had to get down to business because he had to pick up his princess pretty soon. "And you remember that tomorrow morning you're chaperoning Venus' class to the…" Old age was setting in, he was sure of it. The name of the place just wouldn't come.

"Planetarium," Hutch supplied.

"I kept thinking aquarium, and I knew that was wrong."

"Starsk, marijuana?" Hutch tapped his finger on the desk with a get-to-it gesture. "I did find a rap sheet on Nolan Brice. He's been in the system for about five years. Two arrests, both for possession."

"Damn."

"Stats list him as six three, one ninety, gray eyes, reddish-blond hair, no scars—very affable."

"It said that?" Starsky paused in his search for his jacket. He had worn it that morning, but now it seemed to have gone somewhere else because it was not on the hook where it usually was.

"Affable," Hutch confirmed. "Means pleasant or friendly."

Starsky shot him a look that hopefully conveyed his irritation. "I know what it means, college-boy." He finally found the jacket where it had fallen behind the file cabinet, right below the hook. "I'm just surprised some grunt from vice knew the word." He shrugged the jacket on. "Anyway, I ran into Roland Brice just before you got here."

"Ran into him, did you?" Hutch smirked.

"Okay, so maybe I went into the Terry Roberts building on purpose. Said hi to Lisa and Kevin. Happened to go into the art studio—just to talk with Brice."

"Starsky!" Hutch said in consternation. "What if—" He stopped when Starsky glared at him.

"I ain't some wet-behind-the-ears rookie, Hutch, even if I haven't been on the force for five years," Starsky said. "I just said hi. We talked about the art show Kevin is in. He's a tall, geeky guy, like Ichabod Crane." Starsky scratched his cheek, considering what Hutch had said. "From your description, he and his brother must look a lot a like. But I got nothing off him. If he's a drug dealer, he could run for mayor, he comes off so squeaky clean."

"Don't say that." Hutch waggled his forefinger. "Remember the mayor three years ago who went down for drug addiction?"

"Why'd you think I used that example?" Starsky scooted Hutch out the office door and shoved the key in the lock. "Maryanne was going to talk with the parents of the two kids. I could tell they were stoned, so I wasn't too sure about taking anything they said at face value. And I don't wanna go entirely on Lisa's word—although I believe her."

"Well, if those two boys know something, we have to get their parent's permission to question them," Hutch said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll go over and talk to Maryanne."

"Thanks. This really fries me—selling drugs to special needs kids." Starsky punched the fist that held the keys into his other palm, which hurt just enough to assuage his anger. He winced, shaking his now-sore hand. "It's like—I don't know, kicking a puppy."

"To you, mushbrain," Hutch said softly, giving Starsky that special smile he only reserved for him. The one that said, I love you so much. "To Brice, it's just more profit and another buyer on the hook, one who will come back again and again for an endless supply, and then want…" He choked and looked away, the muscles in his jaw working.

Starsky laid his hand flat across Hutch's tweed suit jacket, not saying anything. Hutch's short but memorable forced addiction had left deep scars. "Yeah, babe, I know."

Hutch nodded without looking around. "I'll talk to Maryanne," he said softly.

"See you at the house, with the boys," Starsky said and almost ran to his car so that he didn't pull Hutch into his arms right in front of the Marshal Center gym.


	4. four

Friday morning, Hutch woke up at 6:30, which he thought was damned good. There had been no crying in the night, no bedwetting from Steven, requiring a change of sheets at some ungodly hour. David had made it through the night without his one of his bi-monthly nightmares, and neither of the cats had yowled out by the back fence. Hutch had gotten an amazing seven hours of sleep and felt refreshed, although if offered another hour or two, he would not have refused.

Friday mornings were traditionally his morning with the kids, the one day a week when Starsky could sleep in. Being the captain meant that Hutch could set his own hours—once in a while, when there weren't meetings. He peered at Starsky, who was hunched over on his side of the bed with the cats Isis and Bastet curled around him like a protective shield. Trying to decide whether to steal a quick cuddle or get up and start the day, Hutch was nearly blasted out of the covers when Chester woofed loudly from the open door.

Both cats bolted under the bed and Starsky groaned, burrowing under his pillow.

"Ssh!" Hutch swung his legs over the side of the bed, glaring at the dog. "Where's Lisa, Chester? She can take you outside."

"Hello, Hutch!" As if on cue, Lisa caught up with her pet, giving Hutch a good-morning hug. "I want oatmeal today."

"What a surprise," Starsky muttered sleepily from under his pillow.

"Ssh, Starsky's sleeping," Hutch whispered to Lisa with a grin. He felt good. He felt happy, despite the disturbing news of marijuana at the Marshal Center. Maryanne Ladbrooke was going to coordinate talks with the parents of the two boys for later today—after Hutch went with Venus' class on the field trip.

"But you're in luck!" he told Lisa. "Guess what is on the breakfast menu?"

"Oatmeal?" Lisa squealed excitedly. "With brown sugar and cinnamon?" Even Chester woofed with glee over that.

"You got it." Hutch agreed, groping for his old chenille robe and shuffling into his decrepit corduroy slippers. Starsky called them 'old men's slippers' but Hutch liked them, they felt homey.

"Papa!"

The moment Hutch made it to the hall, half boxed in by a large dog, Lisa, and the door he was trying to close, Venus launched herself at him, all skinny arms and knobby knees. "I'm hungry!"

"That seems to be the consensus around here." He swung her onto his hip and gave her a kiss on her forehead, just over one eyelid where her skin was impossibly soft and sweet.

"Guess what?" Venus said brightly, nuzzling him under his jaw like she used to when she was much smaller.

He shifted her in his arms, surprised at her weight. She was no longer the tiny bundle from five years ago. "What?"

"Snot is still asleep!" Venus widened her eyes. It was, in fact, something of a miracle. Steven slept the least of all the children, sometimes wandering the house very late at night, to the consternation of his fathers.

"Well, then, we'd better be quiet." Hutch set her on her feet and noticed that there was no huge dog milling around in the narrow hallway. "Lisa? Did you let Chester out?"

"Yes." She grinned at him. "And the cats, too. Now can I have oatmeal?"

"Find clothes, ladies, while I try to find oatmeal," Hutch said. "How does that sound?"

Venus did an impromptu dance step, twirling like a water bug. "Can I wear my tutu to the plan'terrarium?"

Well used to Starsky's mangling of words, Hutch just laughed. She was her father's daughter. "Don't you have a nice pair of jeans and a t-shirt?"

"With Cinderella on it?" Venus jumped up and down on one foot, her pink tongue sticking out between her lips.

"Sure," Hutch said, his mind more on making breakfast. He walked through the toy littered family room and into the kitchen with the girls trailing behind.

"We need to buy one!" Venus announced emphatically, licorice black braids bouncing wildly as she jumped.

"What?" He stared at her. "You have one with Cinderella."

"No she doesn't," David said, coming up behind them both, wearing the same Crocodile Dundee shirt he'd had on the day before.

Hutch thought about saying something, but the shirt looked clean. He knew for a fact that David hadn't slept in it, so he left it alone.

"She's got a shirt with Snow White," David added, turning on the TV. He slumped on the brown plaid sofa, shoving a couple of Steven's toy cars onto the floor.

"Really?" Hutch looked at him in surprise and filled a pot with water for the hot cereal. When did David pay attention to his sister's clothing?

"Remember?" David asked with exaggerated patience. "When we went to Disneyland? It has her name on it."

"Yeah!" Venus danced around so fast she was in danger of crashing into the table. "Venus in pink! And David got his name, and Snot did…But not Lisa, cause she didn't come."

"Why don't you wear that one?" Hutch asked, groaning. It really was too early for this much discussion. How did Starsky handle the kids six mornings out of seven?

"It's dirty!" Venus sighed, ending her dance with a dramatic interpretation of a dying swan, humming a vaguely recognizable version of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

God almighty, give me strength. Hutch dumped oatmeal in the water. "Venus, please, go find clothes. I don't care what you wear."

"You'll be sorry," David sing-songed with a wicked grin.

"Hey." Hutch turned down the burner, going over to give his son a quick hug. He didn't know quite what it was—David's early neglect, his resemblance to Starsky or just some indefinable quality, but he and David had clicked immediately, when the boy was battered and alone. If Venus was the first child of his heart, then David was the one who had muscled his way in and taken over.

"Haven't talked to you much lately," Hutch said to the boy. "How's school been? I know you and Aiden hung out here on Monday. Did you go to Little League on Tuesday?"

"I didn't hit a single ball." David kept his eyes focused on the antics of Moose and Flying Squirrel. David's athletic abilities left something to be desired, but he was a fierce competitor and too proud to back down from a challenge.

"That's why they call it practice," Hutch said, finger-combing David's wild curls into a semblance of neatness. It was a rare thing for the two of them to be alone without Steven or the girls.

"Uh—" David finally looked straight at him, with the slightly guilty air that Hutch usually only saw on suspect sitting in the interrogation room. "Can I tell you something, Pop?"

"Always."

"Yesterday, Dad asked me about marijuana."

"Yes," Hutch said, going for neutral, settling on the sofa next to him.

David shrugged, obviously having some internal debate. "I know…somebody who—you know, has some."

"You do?" Hutch smelled the oatmeal and debated jumping up before it burned. Luckily, Lisa walked in, dressed in a blue striped shirt and jeans. "Lisa, could you turn off the stove, stir the oatmeal, and put it into bowls?"

"I can!" she crowed. "No Poptarts today, schweetheart. It's oatmeal on Friday. Oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon, just for Lisa."

David rolled his eyes and ducked his head, staring at the TV. "Brian Sweets. He had a couple joints at recess yesterday," he whispered.

Damn—was marijuana on every school campus? "And what did you do?" Hutch asked carefully, his chest tightening.

"I'm telling you!" David yelled. "You're the fuckin' cop! You're supposed to do something!"

"Hey!" Hutch said. "Language."

"David said a bad word." Lisa thunked the bowls on the table.

"What'd you want?" David jumped up, his blue eyes blazing. "I told you, okay? I didn't take any, okay? I know what'll happen. Pot makes you stupid, and I ain't never gonna be that way." His erupting anger was obviously taking over any rational thought. "Brian'll know now. He'll come after me, him and his buddies." David shoved one chairs away from the table and onto the floor. Cursing under his breath, he dashed out of the family room, nearly running down Venus, who burst into tears.

"Damn," Hutch said softly enough that he hoped the girls wouldn't hear. "Venus, love-girl, come here. David's just having a hard time." He gathered her into his arms, rocking her the way he had when she was smaller.

"So'm I," Venus wailed and then sniffed indignantly. "I don't got nothing to wear."

"Don't have anything," Hutch corrected automatically, looking her over critically. She'd pulled together a colorful mélange of clothing: a bright green and blue t-shirt with orange clown fish swimming in formation from their trip to Hawaii the previous summer, a purple skirt, red-and-black striped tights that reminded Hutch of the wicked witch of the west in the Wizard of Oz and red high-topped Reeboks. Astronauts could probably see her on the moon. Hutch held his tongue on any fashion comments. "Eat your oatmeal with Lisa, I have to find the boys."

"I put lots of brown sugar on yours," Lisa said, waving her spoon at the little mound of sugar on the hot cereal. "It's good."

Walking down the hall, Hutch could hear David taking out his temper on Lego dinosaurs, snarling and crashing the plastic brick animals into oblivion. They'd be put back together on another day.

"Dav'd-Davy-Davy-Dav'd," Steven chanted. He was in the fray of things, sitting with his butt on his heels, improbably spinning a single Lego on one end. "Papa!" he cried when he caught sight of Hutch.

Hutch swung the boy into the air. This was a good day. Steven had called him by his name instead of just shrieking louder than an air raid siren. David completely ignored the both of them, throwing two handfuls of Legos at the wall.

"It's oatmeal for breakfast, Stevie-boy," Hutch said, quickly stripping off his pajama bottoms and diaper. Miracle of miracles, he was dry. Would the wonders never cease? "Go potty?"

His blue eyes lit up and Steven ran off giggling to use the bathroom.

"Thank you for telling me about Brian," Hutch said over the din of David's destruction.

Yellow, red and blue bricks pounded against the wall and skittered across the entire floor.

"I'm really proud that you trust me that much."

David tossed another handful of bricks against a poster of the Transformers. His rage was cooling: a lot of the power had drained away from his pitch. If only he could harness that precision on the baseball diamond.

"I'll call the principal of your school and your name will never come up. You know that, don't you?" Hutch leaned against the doorframe

David froze, holding half a Lego dinosaur in his left hand. He placed it down gently as if his tantrum had never happened. "Brian'll know, cause you're the cop."

"Does he scare you?"

"No." David lifted his head, tough and defiant. "I can take him."

David was small for ten and, if Hutch remembered correctly, Brian Sweets was a big bruiser of a kid, just like his younger brother Jimmy. "Then you better get something under your belt before the bus arrives."

David looked straight at Hutch, his eyes flat, not revealing a single emotion. "I would not smoke a joint."

"I know that, son." Hutch wanted to pull the boy into his arms, but there were times when he knew that offering even an ounce of sympathy or kindness was too much. David had so little trust—he'd used up his allotment for the morning. He'd told Hutch his secret, which was a long way from the bottled up, angry child he had been four years earlier.

David didn't move, his blue eyes locked on Hutch, and then one side of his mouth twitched up just a little. "I don't like oatmeal."

"Grab a banana." Hutch leveled his finger at him with a chuckle. "Can I ask one more question?"

"Since you didn't yet, knock yourself out." David shoved some of the Legos into an untidy pile.

"Thanks," Hutch said dryly. He perched on the edge of David's unmade bed. "Do you know where Brian got the marijuana from?"

Very carefully, David stacked one red brick on another one and pressed down to secure them. "I guess."

"And?" Hutch asked, tamping down his curiosity. This was not some witness he could grill.

David sighed, avoiding his father's gaze by placing another Lego on his creation. "I saw this guy—not a kid, I don't know, maybe an adult—behind the auditorium, talking to Brian. Then later he was walking down Victory."

David's elementary school was just over a mile from where Starsky worked, on Victory Street. Hutch let out a slow breath, excitement building under his breastbone. Was it possible that the marijuana at both places came from the same source? "What did he look like?"

"A guy." David shrugged, chewing on his bottom lip. He looked up at the sound of a horn from outside. "Like… you know that movie we all watched at Halloween? Headless Horseman? He was like Ichabod Crane. Tall."

Bingo! Not a perfect description, but exactly how Starsky had described Roland Brice, which would work for Nolan, too. Hutch had enough to pick Brice up.

The horn honked again. "Unless I miss my guess," Hutch pointed out the window, "your bus is here."

"You always gotta be right?" David groused, scooping up his backpack from the floor.

"Fathers are always right." Hutch gave him a one-armed hug, about as much as David ever tolerated.

"Says you." David threw over his shoulder, dashing out the door without breakfast or lunch. Hutch sighed. The kid was a survivor. He generally came home with cookies and peanut butter sandwiches provided by half a dozen of the fifth grade girls. Even at the age of ten, he was a chick magnet, probably because he ignored the little love-sick girls completely.

"I go pee!" Steven announced, running back into the room completely naked.

"And lost your pj top, too," Hutch observed with a grin. "What do you want to wear, Stevie-boy?" He pulled a red striped t-shirt and sweat pants out of the dresser, tugging the shirt over the boy's head in seconds. Steven fluttered his fingers the entire time, singing something abstract and tuneless under his breath. Hutch held his son close to pull on the pants and spread one hand across his narrow little chest. Steven's heart pattered under his palm, proof of life even when Steven went inward, watching visions only he could see.

"Where do you go, Steven?" Hutch asked, not for the first time. "I love you."

"Two o'us!" Steven announced, flipping his fingers about an inch in front of his eyes. "Two o'us."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starsky sat at the far end of the table in the Marshal Center conference room, watching Maryanne and Hutch. To reduce the stress of formally questioning Neil Chang and Mikey Carter, Hutch had agreed to have the interrogation at the school. The room barely contained the three of them, plus two sets of grim parents, two frightened boys, and a police stenographer. After Hutch explained that this was an official police investigation and everything would be taken down by the stenographer, he got right down to business.

"I want to thank you, Reverend and Mrs. Carter and Mr. and Mrs. Chang, for agreeing to meet with me and allowing your sons to give their statements." Hutch nodded at the parents. "Mrs. Ladbrooke and I…"

Reverend Carter looked angry enough to cast fire and brimstone down on the whole school. "We pay good money to have our child in a safe environment!" he said in the booming voice that probably made him a damned fine orator at the church pulpit. It was far too loud for the small room. "Neither my wife nor I have ever used stimulants of any kind, and I am appalled that drugs of this sort have penetrated what we assumed was a secure campus."

Starsky winced. Poor Mikey, no wonder the kid often resembled a kicked puppy, with a dad like that. Starsky wanted to jump up and give the minister a piece of his mind, but that was not what they were here for.

"Sir," Hutch said in a voice that could make hardened criminals cower in their boots. It affectively silenced Carter long enough for Hutch to continue. "The staff immediately contacted me the moment they were aware that marijuana was found on campus. It is highly unfortunate that your son—and the Changs' son," he paused to indicate the quiet Asian couple on the other side of the table, "got caught up in all this, but I promise you, we are all as concerned as you are."

"Excuse, please?" Wang Chang said in broken English. "I am a structural engineer. I know nothing of drugs." He glanced at his son with a twist of some indefinable emotion and then back at Hutch with a helpless expression. Neil jutted out his chin, looking angry and alienated. "Should our son have…I am not sure of the term? With—drawal?"

Starsky sat up straighter. This was his area of expertise. And it wasn't simply because he'd once had to help Hutch climb off the Horse. He'd taken courses in drug education along with his physical education training. A P.E. teacher's life wasn't all volley ball and sweaty t-shirts anymore.

"Mr. Chang, that should not be a problem. I doubt that Neil smoked marijuana more than once. Marijuana is not addictive in the same way that some other drugs are. He should be fine as long as he doesn't do it again." Starsky looked straight at the boy.

Neil's accident had damaged his reasoning and intellect and left him with a scrambled impulsivity. It was possible that the marijuana had actually helped smooth out his behavioral problems because this was the quietest Starsky had ever seen him. Not that he would mention the idea of self-medicating with pot to the parents.

"Neil," Starsky said, "can you tell us when you met the man you said was Nolan Brice?"

Hutch sent him a little nod of gratitude that Starsky felt spiral right down his spine, almost as if Hutch had actually pressed his hand against his back.

"We went out behind the gym," Neil said, rolling his lip and avoiding his parents' eyes. "What day…?"

Mikey's one claim to fame was a phenomenal memory for dates. "November 18th, a Tuesday…"

"Thanks, Mikey!" Starsky said quickly. If Mikey got going, he'd continue on for hours, listing every significant date and holiday in the year. "So, this Tuesday, you met Mr. Brice?"

"He didn't tell me his name," Neil said tightly.

"Where is this taking us?" the Reverend asked angrily. "You know this dealer's name, just arrest the man."

"Gerald…" Mrs. Carter started.

"Sandra, I'm speaking," Reverend Carter interrupted her with a stern expression.

"Reverend," Maryanne sat up, pushing her glasses up her nose. "I think the police need establish a timeline for what happened…" Starsky nudged her to get her to stop. The last thing they needed was an all out argument.

Mrs. Carter stared down at her folded hands, docile and mute, her lips pressed into a tight line. She was obviously used to being reprimanded.

"I have not noticed," Mr. Chang thought hard for a moment, "any unusual behavior at home."

Mrs. Change covered her mouth with one small hand and whispered something to him in what Starsky assumed was Mandarin.

"My wife says that he was…." He frowned in frustration. "He was an obedient son before the car accident, but now… he is always so angry." He shook his head in sorrow.

"Neil's doing great," Hutch said heartily. "Can you tell us anything more, Neil?"

"He sold some other kids some joints, in a bag," Neil answered tightly.

"How did you know he had…" Hutch began, glancing over at the stenographer. She was typing steadily.

"Mary Jane!" Mikey announced. "He told us he had Mary Jane."

"Did you buy any?" Starsky questioned.

Mikey hunched his shoulders, his face pale. "Not us," he said in a terrified voice.

"Who, Mikey?" Starsky asked softly, backing up Hutch. There was no good cop/bad cop routine here. They had to tread lightly or this whole thing could get messier than it already was.

"Some other kid," Neil snarled.

"Would you know him by name?" Hutch asked in a neutral tone.

"Does he go to the Marshal Center?" Maryanne spoke up, obviously worried about having to tell another set of parents that their son had been drugged up on the campus.

"Yeah, I guess so," Neil said, and this time, he looked directly at his parents. "I only did it once."

"So what happened next?" Hutch asked.

Mikey teased at a cuticle, finally raising his finger to his mouth to bite his fingernail. "He tol' us to come back on November 20th, a Thursday, and he'd…"

"I knew how to light up," Neil took over with bravado. "I seen it in the movies, and Mikey's dad smokes, so…"

"I don't see what that has to do with the subject!" Carter exclaimed.

"Reverend, I don't want to play the heavy here," Hutch said, staring him down. "But you are disrupting the smooth course of the investigation, and if you wish to continue to support your son, then you will have to contain your comments to the matter at hand!"

"I resent the implication that…" Carter began but his wife made a small sound and he subsided with a loud harrumph.

"Neil?" Hutch encouraged.

Neil shifted in his seat, his expression surly. "When we saw…Brice give the other guy the Mary Jane, then I tol' him I wanted to try some. So he said he didn't have any more left, and he'd come back on Thursday. The first ones was a freebie, but we'd have to pay five dollars a joint after that."

"I am so ashamed," Mr. Chang said softly.

Neil grimaced, his black brows forming an inky V over his eyes. "My older brother Edgar uses," he spat out.

Mrs. Chang gasped and lashed out in rapid Chinese, which, in Starsky's opinion, sounded a lot like swearing. Neil looked even more rebellious at his mother's scolding.

Starsky rushed into to fill the void at Neil's announcement before the Reverend started in again on the evils of drugs. "We're only really interested in Nolan Brice's actions. Captain Hutchinson, did you bring some pictures?"

"Oh, yes, thank you, Coach." Hutch opened a folder and extracted six pictures, showing them quickly to the stenographer before arranging them in two lines of three on the table in front of Neil and Mikey.

"My son's intellectual capacities…" Carter started belligerently.

"Reverend, I warned you once." Hutch held up a stiff finger. "I will now ask you to wait quietly outside until the boys are finished. This shouldn't take more than a few minutes."

"You can't do that!" Carter jumped to his feet, leaning forward aggressively.

"Daddy?" Mikey asked, sucking on his now bleeding finger.

"It's all right, baby," Mrs. Carter soothed. "Your father will do what the nice policeman asked him, won't you, Gerald?" There was a spark of life in her wan face. She never looked over at her husband, but abruptly, he turned and stalked out of the room, slamming the door.

Starsky cheered silently.

Maryanne rolled her eyes. "Well, Neil? Mikey, do you recognize any of those pictures?"

"That one!" Mikey said, obviously anxious to help. "That's Nolan Brice. I know him. He looks like the art teacher." He put his bleeding finger on the photo of the suspect, taken from his arrest record. The other five, various pictures of incarcerated drug dealers and two snaps of cops in Hutch's department, didn't confuse the boy at all.

Neil took his time examining each photograph. He nodded, pointing to the same one that now had a bloody fingerprint on the bottom. "That's him. Nolan Brice." He stole a glance at his mother who had tears in her dark eyes. "Are we in trouble?"

"Not with the police," Hutch said solemnly. "Ellen, record that both boys identified the same picture, number four, as Nolan Brice."

"Yes, Captain." She typed quickly on her steno machine.

"Thank you, Neil, Mr. and Mrs. Chang, and you, Mikey, and your parents, for being brave enough to come forward." Hutch handed them his business cards. "We'll give you a call once the statements are typed up. We'll need your signatures as Neil and Mikey's guardians." He looked solemnly at Neil and Mikey. "Boys, remember that drugs are dangerous business. I don't want to hear that you continued down that path, or you could be in serious trouble with the police."

Mrs. Chang something softly in Chinese to her husband.

"She say we thank you," Mr. Chang said formally. "We will teach younger son to be more…respectful." He shook his head. "Now I hear about older son. I do not…"

"Mr. Chang, if you need any guidance, I am here for your family." Maryanne held open the door for them, giving a quick bow as all three walked out. Neil towered over his tiny parents, but walked submissively beside them.

"Coach?" Mrs. Carter gave her son a little hug. "You have always been so kind. Mikey adores your classes. If this had to happen…" She smiled at Mikey who went back to sucking his finger. "I am gad that it was you who could deal with… My husband is difficult, but…"

"Thanks, Sandra," Starsky said sincerely. He'd always liked Mikey's mother. It was clear where Mikey got his sweet, shy personality. "Call me anytime."

"Ellen," Hutch said to the policewoman still going over her notes, "can you get those back to headquarters and typed up ASAP?"

"Sure thing, Captain." Ellen closed her steno machine and disappeared through the door.

Hutch collapsed in a chair once the room had cleared. "Well, we got this guy to rights. Did I tell you what David said this morning?"

"He ID'ed Brice, too?" Starsky claimed the chair next to Hutch's, scooting it in closer so that the length of their thighs touched.

"Independent corroboration." Hutch nodded tiredly, rubbing his hand down Starsky's jeans clad thigh. About as intimate as they dared in Maryanne's office. "Told me he'd seen a guy hanging around the school who looked 'like Ichabod Crane.' Exactly what you said about Roland."

"Wonder if they're twins?" Starsky mused. "We've got half the family in on the investigation so far. If Planet and Steven start pointing out criminals, just think how effective the Starsky-Hutchinsons could be."

"Hutchinson-Starskys," Hutch said with a straight face. "And sorry to burst your bubble, but your princess has decided to be an astronomer. She loved the planetarium this morning. She knows all the names of the planets."

"She should! I knew that field trip was right up your alley." Starsky stood and tucked a hand under Hutch's elbow to get him on his feet. "You always did want to get me out into fields at night to point out the stars."

Hutch couldn't quite hide his grin. "That wasn't quite my reason for getting you alone in the dark."

"Ulterior motives, Captain?" Starsky hip-bumped him once he was upright.

Maryanne came back through the office door and regarded the two of them with a smirk. "None of that hanky-panky with my staff, Captain Hutchinson."

"Perish the thought, Lady Principal." Hutch collected up the photos and stuffed them into his files.

"So what's next?" She crossed her arms with a dejected air. "I just hate this whole thing. I've sent out memos to the teachers, and now I'll have to send out a letter to all the parents. It's like one of those sponges that looks small until you dip it into water and it keeps growing."

"Our bathroom is littered with those, all shaped like zoo animals," Starsky said. "And you know, I just realized, Lisa brought up marijuana the night before I saw Neil and Mikey stoned. She must know someone else who used."

"Damn." Hutch pressed against his forehead the way he always did when he had a headache. "I didn't want her to have to make an official statement."

"Do you think she'd be keeping quiet for a friend?" Maryanne asked.

"Lisa's not that good a liar. She can't keep quiet about a birthday present one week ahead of time," Hutch said.

"And she specifically told me that Kevin didn't smoke weed, so I don't know who else she'd be shielding." Starsky tapped his finger on the table, something was nagging at him, but damned if he knew what it was. Something in the way Lisa had talked about the "Mary Jane."

Or not talked about it. He remembered now—the moment he'd asked about anyone besides Kevin, she had complained of sleepiness. He snapped his fingers. "She's started making some new friends lately, particularly Annette Bancock who's in one of my classes. I haven't noticed any druggie behavior from any of the other students, though." Starsky shrugged. "I saw the boys this morning, and thought that was the end of it, but who knows how many of our clients Brice got to."

"Maybe I can discretely talk to Annette and her parents. See if she knows anything?" Maryanne suggested.

"I can tell you one thing." Starsky poked Hutch on the arm "Annette was in class the same day I found Neil and Mikey stoned, and she looked fine."

"We may never find out all the kids this bastard coerced." Maryanne jotted down a few notes to herself on a yellow legal pad.

"I'm going to call in a warrant for Brice's arrest as soon as I get out of here," Hutch said. "But after that, I'm giving all the statements over to another set of detectives. I've probably already overstepped departmental boundaries, since my own kid is peripherally involved."

Starsky laughed, the knot in his belly at the idea of Lisa, Kevin, Neil, and Mikey dealing with scum like Brice loosening up. "She's one of ours, now, huh?"

"Lisa?" Hutch nodded, throwing an arm around Starsky. "I think she always has been, even before her Mom died. Two girls and two boys now. We're done."

"You two are just way too domestic for my taste." Maryanne made shooing gestures. "Where're those tough, macho cops I met way back when?"

"You want me to slug Hutch?" Starsky cocked a fist, suddenly gleefully happy. "'Cause that's what us macho, tough guys do."

"School rules says no fisticuffs!" Maryanne warned, giggling.

"Hey!" Hutch caught Starsky's fist, blocking the playful blow. "I'm all for peace, love…"

"And rock and roll," Starsky finished. "I know. Too Hip to be Square, aren't ya, Huey? Maryanne, his taste runs to John Denver and Peter, Paul, and Mary."

"Starsky, those are fighting words!" Hutch exclaimed. "Maryanne, I'll call you with more details when I get them." He grabbed his partner, hauling him out of the door. "I just bought the latest Men at Work album."

"Yeah, Hutch." Starsky aimed a mock slug to his bicep. "Which originally came out four years ago."

"Really? Then why do I hear it played on the radio all the time?" Hutch dodged the blow and shoved Starsky, snickering.

Starsky took off running.

Hutch chased him down the path in front of Marshal Center toward the parking lot, both of them acting far younger than most of the students at the school.

"You're out!" Starsky slapped the hood of Hutch's disreputable car as if they were playing tag, and it was base. He pointed to the radio. "And because you listen to the golden oldies."

"A four-year-old song hardly qualifies as a golden oldie," Hutch said loftily, unlocking the door. "K-CiTY plays an eclectic mix of all different genres."

"And not one song by a single group that was formed this year," Starsky scoffed, leaning against the car.

"As if you are an expert on modern music." Hutch eyed him speculatively, stowing his files. "You listen to Jim Croce and Fats Domino."

"Okay, smarty," Starsky challenged. "Name me a recent song by Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, or…" He thought frantically for a tough one. His own knowledge of the current top ten came from Lisa and David, and their play lists were hardly cutting edge. "The Pet Shop Boys."

"Pet Shop Boys is a group?" Hutch shook his head. "What happened to all the great band names like Strawberry Alarm Clock and Jefferson Airplane?"

"Airplane became Starship and the Alarm Clock broke in--like 1969. You didn't answer my question." Starsky hopped up to sit on the hood of the Ford, banging his sneakers on the wheel rim.

"I know Madonna. It's…" Hutch snapped his fingers with a smug expression. "Like a Virgin."

Starsky blew a raspberry. "Wrong. That's old hat." This he was sure of, because the current release was one of Lisa and Annette's favorite songs. "The answer, said in the form of a question like on Jeopardy, is what is Papa Don't Preach?"

"Oh, God, I don't even want to know about the song with a title like that," Hutch moaned. "How exactly did I get to be called Papa and you're Dad, anyway?"

"Ask Venus: it's all her doing." Starsky slid down, shutting the car door for Hutch and leaning in on the open window. "I think we're slidin' into the fuddy-duddy category, old man. I only listen to Pet Shop Boys because certain ten-year-old boys like their music."

"Who you calling old?" Hutch sighed. "And just so I can keep up with the hip crowd, what is their latest song?"

"West End Girls," Starsky said, humming a few bars. "See you at home?"

"In about two hours. I'll get the boys. Venus is playing with Contessa, right? And Lisa…"

"I'm picking her up from work." Starsky consulted his watch. "Half an hour." He stepped away from the car when Hutch put the key in the ignition. "Get the bastard, Hutch, and put him away where he won't sell anymore drugs to school kids."


	5. five

"Dave, look!" Lisa waved her hand at a shop about two blocks past the McDonald's where she worked.

Keeping his eye on the cross traffic, Starsky couldn't afford to look away from a delivery van making a very illegal U-turn in the middle of the road. "Not now, Lise, I'm…"

"It's a new book store!" Lisa jabbed his finger at the brightly colored sign. "Comic Connection." She sounded out the words carefully. "Comic Connection!" she repeated triumphantly. "I want to go there."

"Lisa, sweetheart, we have to…" A red light afforded Starsky time to glance over at the new shop. There was a large banner announcing "Grand Opening!" and below that, "Free comic book with any purchase!" But the clincher was one of the dozen or so posters in the front window. There was blond Sheriff Rick standing next to his dark-haired buddy Hipshot Percussion. Both had their hands resting on their low-slung gun belts, ready for anything.

"They have Rick O'Shay!" Lisa said in awe. "Just like you said. Rick O'Shay. You said we would find it."

"We only have a short time before I have to pick up Venus," Starsky hedged. "But we can buy a comic book or the poster, whichever you want." With the same luck that had produced the old comic strip just as he'd predicted, he found a parking spot only yards away from the store. "Has to be under five bucks, buckaroo, because now I'll have to get something for the others, too."

"They're free!" Lisa crowed, jumping out before the car had come to a complete halt. Starsky almost chastised her, but she was already on the sidewalk and running towards the comic book shop with a rapt expression.

Laughing, Starsky set the brake and followed her at a more leisurely pace, remembering when he'd saved every penny of his paper route to buy Superman and Batman comics. Funny how the same things came around every generation, in some form or other. He'd bet any amount that Hutch hadn't squandered his money on comics—probably something far more high brow like Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.

"My mom and I used to eat our cinnamon toast and read Rick O'Shay." Lisa reached up to touch the glass over the poster in the window, tears making her blue eyes glisten. "She'd like that poster so much."

"It's a good memory." Starsky hugged her gently.

"I could put that on my wall." Lisa jiggled her purse. "You don't have to buy that, it's free."

"You get a comic book free if you buy one thing," Starsky explained. "You have enough money from your job, so you could buy a poster and get a comic book free, too."

"To give to Kevin?" Lisa breathed in, the tears gone in her eyes. "He likes Star Wars. Do they have Star Wars comic books?"

"I'll bet they do." Starsky held open the door, breathing in that first heady scent of colored ink on newsprint. Smelled exactly like the store he used to frequent just around the corner from Uncle Elmo's toys when he was fourteen.

The selection was even better than he could have hoped. There was old Superman, new Superman, all the Marvel superheroes, as well as X-Men, Elfquest, Star Wars and, of course, Rick O'Shay. In less than ten minutes, Starsky and Lisa walked out with armfuls of purchases, both smiling.

"Can we go there again?" Lisa asked hopefully. "I like that Elfquest you got for Venus."

"I figure anything that gets kids reading is okay by me," Starsky said, recalling his mother's disapproval of his favorites. Unless he was completely wrong, David would get a kick out of the X-men comic he'd bought. Of course, knowing David, he'd pretend he hated the book until he could get it under the covers with a flashlight. Starsky steered through late afternoon traffic with a grin on his face at the thought.

As usual, the Delwerks' big blue house looked like a daycare, with half a dozen kids of various sizes and colors playing in the wide front yard. This had become Venus' second home since she and Contessa Delwerks met when they were eighteen months old at the park.

"There's Venus!" Lisa called out when Starsky pulled the car up to the curb, "She's got a new shirt on."

Contessa, Venus and a petite blond with two enormous pink bows on the top of her head were having a tea party under a maple tree. They were completely ignoring a free-for-all football game raging around them on the lawn. Marquis, the eldest Delwerks boy, was running with a football tucked under his arm, his brothers Princeton, Rex, and Duke, plus two other boys, in hot pursuit. Four year-old Amir sat on the front step with a collection of green Army men, chewing contentedly on a cookie. Aurie-Mae, the matriarch of the wild clan, sat on an old sofa on the porch nursing her youngest with a mild eye on the galloping hordes.

"Looks like you got things under control!" Starsky called when he and Lisa came up the front walk.

"Always chaos, 'round here, Maxwell Smart." Aurie-Mae chuckled, the baby at her breast bouncing up and down on her ample belly. "We all had a grand time this morning looking at the stars. I do enjoy spending time with that blond man you live with. He lights up my day." She crooned the latter to the tune of the famous Debbie Boone song.

"Aurie-Mae, what would your husband say?" Starsky laughed, watching as three boys tackled Marquis, and Princeton made off with the ball. Apparently, the driveway on the west side was his team's goal. He did a touchdown dance all around the Delwerks' VW van.

"Oswald would be happy I wasn't interested in anything more than looking at that fine specimen of a blond man," Aurie-Mae scoffed. "You have time to set a spell? Looks like Lisa wants a cup of tea with the ladies over there."

Lisa had hunkered down with the little girls, sipping what was probably plain water from a pink plastic cup. Venus glanced over her shoulder at her father, but went back to whatever deep discussion she was having about the tangle of mostly naked Barbie dolls the girls had between them. Starsky never could understand why Venus's dolls were almost always nude, hairless and covered in squiggles made with Magic Marker.

"Sure, for a little while." Starsky perched on the railing of the wrap-around porch, waiting until she had burped baby Viscount and settled him into her lap. "Aurie, have you heard anything about marijuana, either at Marshal Center or at Victory Street School?"

Aurie-Mae's school-aged children attended the same school as David and Venus. Although Venus and Contessa spent all their time together, Starsky knew that David didn't hang out with the Delwerks boys. David and Marquis got along fine when they were alone, but Starsky suspected that sixth grader Marquis didn't tell his buddies that he played Lego dinosaurs with fifth grader David whenever he was over at the Starsky-Hutchinson house.

"I talked to Maryanne." Aurie-Mae harrumphed, shaking her head. "That just roasts my gizzards. Selling drugs to kids who already got 'nough road bumps in their lives. I ain't talked to my nephew Lavirle since he broke his wrist—and he's all broke up that he can't play basketball with the Special Olympic Zebras, but he won't be using any illegal drugs, not if his mama has anything to say about it." Aurie-Mae's sister Leticia was as hard-nosed as Aurie-Mae was easy going.

"David told me he's seen our main suspect around the school, selling to some of the older kids."

"The hell he did!" she exclaimed so loudly that Viscount wailed in protest. "Ssh, daddy, ssh-ssh," Aurie-Mae whispered to the baby. "You got that suspect in your sights, Dave?"

Starsky pointed his finger like a pistol. "Don't carry concealed any longer, but Hutch's taking out a warrant right now. I just wondered if I could talk to Marquis for a moment. Nothing official, since Hutch isn't here. Just wondering how far this thing goes."

"Marq!" Aurie-Mae shouted. "Come over here for a minute. Talk to Venus' daddy."

Starsky grinned. He adored Aurie-Mae and her take-charge attitude. Even with a houseful of children, ask her anything, and it was done the next day, if not sooner.

"What?" Marquis wiggled his way free from the huddle and stomped over, resentful at the summons, but not about to disobey his mother. His brown face was liberally splotched with dirt and mud. "I ain't done nuthin'."

"Course not," Starsky said. "In fact, I got something for you and all your brothers and sister. He fanned out the comic books he'd brought with him and displayed them on the steps. A little of everything from the fifty cent bin at the store. With the buy one, get one free prices, he'd loaded up.

Marquis' obsidian eyes widened greedily.

"Have you seen a tall man, reddish hair, really thin, anywhere at your school?" Starsky leaned forward, trying to be the friend and not a threatening adult. "Maybe with Brian Sweets?"

Marquis didn't move but Starsky could feel the sudden distance between them. The boy's eagerness disappeared, his face suspicious. "I dunno."

"Marquis de Sean, you answer Dave," Aurie-Mae said, the way all mothers did.

"He's bad news," Marquis muttered.

Starsky heard a sharp intake of breath from behind him. Without even looking around, he knew Lisa was listening. "Lise?" he called softly. "You want to come sit up here with us?"

Aurie-Mae smiled and held out her hand, "You come over here on the sofa with me, honey-girl."

Lisa sat down quietly, her face unusually grave. Marquis frowned as if uncertain whether he should continue with the new audience member.

"Marq?" Starsky asked quietly, easing back just a little to let off the pressure. "He's bad news in what way?"

"He deals."

"Damn," Aurie-Mae said fast and hard. Marquis stared at his mother; he'd obviously never heard her swear before. "That word's not coming out of your mouth, young man." She shook her finger at him. "But I sure got the right, once in a while." The boy nodded mutely, his mouth still open in astonishment.

"Have you seen him selling on campus?" Starsky persisted.

"Some of the kids, y'know like eighth graders?" Marquis focused on his scuffed sneakers. The left one was missing a shoelace. "They were using their lunch money, sometimes, to buy…" He glanced at his mother. "Not me. He don't sell no weed t'sixth graders."

"Small favors!" Aurie-Mae fanned the air by her cheeks. "Thank the Lord the man has some scruples."

"Probably just knows most sixth graders don't have any cash," Starsky said out of the side of his mouth.

"I've seen him, too," Lisa spoke up, twisting her hands in her lap, almost ruining the new Rick O'Shay book she held.

His pulse speeding up, Starsky took a slow breath to keep from firing questions at her like an interrogator. He gently smoothed out the comic book and squeezed her hand. "When?"

"Remember, I told you?" Lisa blurted out and jerked their linked hands as if emphasizing her point. "Remember, in the night?"

"I remember, Lisa. When did you see Br…the red haired man?" Just in time, he realized she'd never given him a name.

"He had Mary Jane—like cigarettes, only twisted up, you know?" She curled a long blonde hair around one finger and tugged nervously.

"Yeah," Marquis said softly, leaning against his mother's knee. "Costs five dollars a bag."

Aurie-Mae grunted, shifting the baby onto her shoulder to give Marquis more room. "Doesn't that fool principal have eyes in her head? The children be seeing this: why isn't she?"

"Good question," Starsky agreed.

"Some boys from Marshal Center bought the Mary Jane." Lisa sniffed, hugging her comic book to her chest. "Boys I don't know, but they were smoking, and I know that smoking is bad."

Almost exactly what Mikey and Neil had said. So who were these mysterious Marshal Center students? Starsky felt slightly guilty to be relieved that she hadn't seen any of her friends paying for the weed. "You were really brave to tell me, Lisa," he said, wiping away one of her tears with the ball of his thumb. "I'll tell Hutch so he can arrest this dealer. You're a good citizen for helping put away such a bad guy." She gave him a watery smile, tracing her finger across the cartoon images of Rick and Hipshot.

Waving a hand over the array of comic books laying on the porch step, Starsky grinned at his other informant. "And thank you, Marq, you earned your reward. Pick one of these, and give the rest to your brothers."

"I like Wolverine!" He grabbed a comic with the mutant baring his wickedly sharp knife-fingers on the cover and stuffed the others under his arm. "Prince can have the Justice League."

"You're giving them the illicit fruit." Aurie-Mae smiled indulgently. "Now they'll just want more comics."

"Educational, you know," Starsky dead-panned. "It's always important to know how to vanquish a super villain trying to take over the world."

"I got this one!" Lisa held up her book. "My mommy and I used to read Rick O'Shay."

"Very nice," Aurie-Mae murmured. "Maybe you and I can read it together next week when we come over to your house to celebrate the holiday."

"Mommy!" Amir abandoned his soldier men, and walked over, looking resentfully at the baby who now got the breasts he'd relinquished only a few years before. "How come Viscount gets…"

"You're four years old, boy! No more of that for you." Aurie-Mae hauled him up on her lap, tumbling him together with the sleeping Viscount. "Gotta feed the horde, Dave. You tell that blond man o'yours that I'd like to give that drug dealer a piece of my mind once he's in jail."

"He's lucky he'll be behind bars, Aurie. You're a force to be reckoned with." Starsky stretched his legs before getting up. Just one more thing he was never quite sure whether to pin on older age or getting shot and nearly dying seven years earlier. He ached on cold days, wet days, and windy days. He wheezed when it was humid, and stiffened up if he sat too long. Not to mention the persistent ache in his chest whenever he put a ball through the hoop at the gym. "Venus! Let's get moving!"

"Oh, that pretty little thing with the butterfly bow perched on top of her head be Galina," Aurie-Mae said, tucking Viscount into a battered porta-crib by the front door. Amir whined, tugging on her sleeve to be picked up. "The two boys playing ball with mine are her brothers. They don't speak much English. Their family just come out of Russia the hard way and my church is helping them out. If you have any thing to donate, they'd be happy for whatever you could provide."

"Have you found them a place to live?" Starsky tracked Venus' progress across the lawn. Not one to simply walk, Venus always danced, humming snatches of music under breath.

"Galina is nice, but she talks in another language," Lisa said. "Not 'Merican."

"The church is helping Galina's daddy get a job, but so far, it's been slim pickings." Aurie-Mae pulled Amir up onto one padded hip, settling him comfortably against her shoulder. He closed his eyes with contentment. "We found a tiny little place for them on National. Ain't where I’d raise a bunch of children, but that's as much as the money could rent."

"I'll dig through the kids' old stuff—and maybe throw in a few new things," Starsky promised. Both he and Hutch had jobs and steady incomes. It was the least he could do. His grandmother used to tell him stories about when she'd first brought his father and uncles over from Poland, how hard it was to learn the language and find work. "Could be that Maryanne needs someone to clean up at Marshal Center, too."

"I have faith in you." Aurie Mae beamed.

"Bring them along next Thursday, we'll introduce them to a real American Thanksgiving," Starsky added.

"I already planned to." Aurie-Mae winked and kissed Amir's tightly curled black hair.

Marquis had rejoined the football game. Narrowly avoiding the little girls, all five boys dashed madly across the lawn in pursuit of the ball and tackled one of the blond boys who looked a lot like Galina.

"Daddy!" Venus threw her arms around his thighs, almost throwing Starsky off balance. "Lookit my new shirt! Lookit it!" Between her ballet pirouettes and her bouncing up and down so much that her black braids seemed to move of their own accord, he couldn't make out the design of the sparkly shirt.

"Slow down, Planet!" Starsky knelt down to see her more easily.

"It says Venus!" she cried dramatically, holding out the sides of her blue jacket to give him a good look. There was a large opalescent planet on the front, with Venus spelled out in rhinestones that glittered in the sunlight, sending out refracted rainbows across Venus's creamy brown cheeks.

"Mine says Neptune!" Contessa raced up beside her friend, towing Galina along like an anchor. "And she got Saturn." They wore similar shirts with the planets depicted in shining colors and the names spelled out in glass crystals below.

"A beautiful bevy of planetary princesses," Starsky admired. He couldn't take his eyes off Venus. She was spinning around, her arms outstretched and her face turned up to the sun. She'd once been so tiny that he could hold her in the crook of his arm. Now she was five. In another second, she'd be in high school, and he'd have to worry about her smoking marijuana. Maybe he could put a brick on her head to stop the upward growth?

"The girls couldn't pass up the shirts in the planetarium gift shop once they saw Venus' name." Aurie-Mae shaded her eyes, watching the boys all pile onto Duke in a ferocious tackle. "Princeton, Marquis, you leave off my boy. Time to finish the game!"

"Now I gots two shirts with my own name!" Venus sighed, hugging herself. "It's so t'rrifc."

"She sounds just like you," Aurie-Mae smirked. "Come on, Contessa, Galina—let's get some food for all these boys since Lisa and Venus have to go on home."

"Wednesday night sleepover for Venus and Steven, Aurie-Mae?" Starsky reminded her, herding the girls down the front path. He couldn't wait for his own sleepover with Hutch.

"You pay for the pizza, Dave, and we'll all be happy as bugs in a rug," she called after them.

"Bye-bye!" Venus trilled, hopping from foot to foot like a demented bunny. "Daddy, can we stop at McDonald's?"

"We just came from there," Lisa said, her nose buried in the comic book. "I was working."

"You smell just like French fries." Venus took a big sniff. "I love French fries."

"Hutch is cooking tonight," Starsky said, unlocking the car. Should he try to call Hutch with the new information about Brice? It wasn't much, and wouldn't add to the warrant. "No fries."

Venus collapsed into the backseat. "Aw, he always makes healthy food!"

"Planet, someday you'll thank him." Starsky snorted, hoping that Hutch made something edible, and not the cauliflower mash he'd made the week before. "He's been telling me that for over ten years."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You keep doing all my work for me, I'm gonna start believing you don't think I can hack it," Marcus Deavers said with a grin, standing in the doorway of his miniscule cubicle off the Sutter Station squadroom.

"You don't need the help. I couldn't let this one go, Marcus." Hutch shook his head, looking over the busy office. The precinct was a small one. All the detectives and uniformed officers had their desks in rows in one large room. The place was wall to wall people, police, suspects and regular citizens all crammed in together. "It's too personal when my own kids are that close to illegal drugs."

"Amen to that, my brother." Marcus raised both hands as if he was going to testify in church. "We already had reports about a new player in the field, and knew he was targeting the local schools, but man—an elementary school. That's a new low."

"The warrant is out for Nolan Brice, and you have the witness statements from Marshal Center. Think you can take it from here?" Hutch asked.

"No problem, Captain. Feels like I'm still on your squad."

"You always will be." Hutch was more grateful than he could admit. A part of him really wanted to hunt down Nolan and handcuff the son of a bitch right in front of Victory Street School just to prove to the kids that selling drugs was a dead-end career path. But it was out of his district, and no longer his job to cruise the streets looking for criminals. He'd given that up that right as soon as Starsky left the force.

Clearing his mind of the nastiness, Hutch snapped his fingers. "Hey, do you and Kath have anywhere to go next week on Thanksgiving?"

"We were planning to eat at a restaurant," Marcus said. "She's out to here." He rounded his big brown hands over his abdomen, miming a pregnant belly large enough to carry quadruplets. "Kath hasn't been in the cooking mood for some time."

"Then come over to our place. There'll be nearly a dozen kids, lots of adults, the game on the TV, and enough turkey for everyone," Hutch said. "Aurie-Mae is in charge of the bird, Oswald's doing the stuffing, Starsky is on pies and I have vegetable duty."

"What're you making?" Marcus hedged. "Before I give an unequivocal yes. 'Cause for me, nothing says Thanksgiving like sweet potato pie."

"You and Starsky can fight over who gets the most pieces of pie. I think there'll be apple and pumpkin, too." Hutch ticked off on his fingers. "I'm making mashed potatoes, peas for Venus—and whoever else likes them, and green beans with sliced almonds for the rest of us."

"We'll be there with a bottle of sparkling cider for Kath, who's teetotling these days, and a six pack of pumpkin ale for me. I am willing to share." Marcus shook Hutch's hand with a powerful grip. "Thanks. With any luck, Brice will be in jail by then."

"That'll be the best reason to celebrate Thanksgiving I can think of." Hutch hurried out of Sutter Precinct, past a police officer hauling in a staggering drunk. He was only a few blocks from David's school, but already a little behind schedule. Luckily, he'd found a parking spot right next to the police department. Hutch could only hope that David would be waiting for him at the curb of the school so he wouldn't have to park there, too.

David was at the curb, holding an ice pack to his eye. The principal, a gray haired, heavyset woman, was standing beside him when Hutch pulled up. There were a few other children waiting for their parents, but the school buses had already departed with the majority of the school population.

"Damn," Hutch said to himself, setting the brake to get out of the car. "David? What happened?"

David regarded Hutch with an angry, yet incredibly vulnerable expression. His left eye was swelling and his bottom lip was bloody. He aimed a kick at his backpack on the sidewalk, but didn't say anything.

"Your son started a fight," Mrs. Swenson said sternly, her long narrow nose held high as if she were sniffing something nasty.

Hutch had always had a strong suspicion that she didn't approve of his home life. Tough.

"What happened?" he asked again, waiting judgment until he heard the explanation from David. He had a fairly good idea just who his son had taken on, and half of him was irrationally proud of the smaller David battling his own personal Goliath.

"I told Brian Sweets t'fuck off," David snarled, "and that smoking weed was stupid. So he slugged me."

"Fighting on school grounds is cause for an immediate suspension of one day." Mrs. Swenson twisted her mouth into a sour moue. "Language adds on another. This is his second suspension this semester. If this continues, David could be expelled." She held out a form with the discipline written out in legalese. "You are required sign this."

"Wait a minute," Hutch said. Would she be intimidated by his gun? Of course, it was locked in the glove compartment of the car. "Do you know why David started this?"

"Brian Sweets may not be an exemplary student, but his father is head of the PTA." She shook the form, making the paper crackle. Mrs. Swenson ruled her little corner of the universe like a dictator with a God complex.

David glanced between the two of them and actually backed up slightly; probably worried he'd be in the line of fire if Hutch pulled his piece.

"Ah ha," Hutch said sardonically, anger burning in his chest. How dare she take out her damn prejudices on his kid? "So, did you talk to the little pot head? Or you just take Brain's word over David's because Ed Sweets likes to chair school committees, and I don't?"

"You're…" she sputtered, crossing her arms over her expansive chest.

"What? A cop?" Hutch interrupted, before she brought up the fact that he lived with another man.

"I find it hard to believe that Brian would be…using an illegal substance."

"Then you'd better look at the evidence instead of blaming David every single time there's a fight around here," Hutch said, pitching his voice soft and low so that the other parents still picking up their children late wouldn't hear. "Could we adjourn to your office to discuss the matter instead of letting the whole school in on it?"

"I have places to go. School is over for the day, Mr. Hutchinson." Mrs. Swenson turned to leave. "If you don't sign the form, then we will not allow David back into school until this is taken up by the school district administrator." She gave an elaborate shrug. "With his schedule, that could be weeks."

"Hold on there, Mrs. Swenson." Hutch had stopped suspects in their tracks with just the hard, cold sound of his voice.

Mrs. Swenson was made of sterner stuff. She didn't freeze until she looked over her shoulder and saw his long forefinger pointing at her.

"Mr--"

"That would be Captain Hutchinson, of the Bay City Police Department."

"I am aware of your designation. Captain Hutchinson. Could you and—" She waved a hand at David, her back rigid. "Come into my office."

"You can tell your side of things," Hutch said to his son.

David stared at him for half a beat, his blue eyes as flat as polished stones. He nodded very slightly and grabbed his backpack to follow.

After coming from Marcus Deavers' cramped little office, Hutch was struck—and not for the first time—by the sheer size of Mrs. Swenson's palatial quarters. Whole immigrant families could have lived in her suite, and he wondered what space the school had had to give up to provide the principal with such a large office. There was a wide desk, a long floral upholstered sofa beside the filing cabinet, and a crystal bowl full of candies on a small coffee table.

David snitched a couple lemon drops when the principal was adjusting the blinds. Long rays of afternoon November sun slanted through the blinds, creating zebra stripes across the brick red rug.

Mrs. Swenson clasped her hands in front of her and regarded Hutch with obvious impatience.

"I want to have Ed and Brian Sweets in here, too," Hutch said, taking charge, "if you are making formal charges that result in a suspension. This is very one-sided."

"Brian was in pain. He has already been examined by the school nurse and sent home."

"I kneed him in the nuts," David said, apparently ready to talk. There was a certain gleam in his eye for the accomplishment.

"So Brian hit you in the eye?" Hutch asked.

"I arrived when the bus line monitor alerted me to the incident," Mrs. Swenson said. "I saw David kick Brian in the…groin." She wrinkled her nose.

"And you decided that David was completely at fault?" Hutch clarified, glancing at the boy. David was sucking on the candy with the ice pack back over his left eye.

"I find this sort of thing appalling and distasteful."

"Lady, I'll give you a head's up." Hutch leaned over her desk, so close to doing something appalling and distasteful to her that he had to take a deep breath before speaking. "There has been a drug dealer peddling to the kids at the school. Were you aware of that?"

"At Victory Street School? Absolutely not."

"Too bad for you that the evidence says otherwise." Hutch smiled tightly. He'd fought with this woman for a couple years now. This was the final nail in the coffin. They were going to deal with not only the current problem, but also her discrimination against David. "There is already a warrant out on a Nolan Brice, who has been seen by students selling drugs, here and at Marshal Center several blocks down. There is a high probability that Brian Sweets is one of the children this man has sold drugs to. My son has witnessed the sale on at least one occasion."

"Then he should have brought that to my attention!" she proclaimed indignantly.

"Why? He has absolutely no trust in you since you continually blame him for every fight on the playground." Hutch stared her down.

She sat abruptly, folding her hands on her desk with narrowed eyes.

"Trust is a two way street," he continued. "And from what I can see, you burned that bridge long ago." He sat on the sofa next to his son and was gratified when David moved just enough for his knee to touch Hutch's. "David? Could you please tell Mrs. Swenson what you told me?"

David licked his split lip and tucked his chin to his chest, speaking so fast that there were almost no pauses between the words. "Brian Sweets' been boasting that he had weed for a couple weeks. I seen him buying it from that guy. The tall red haired guy on the edge of the playground next to the field. I tol' Brian lots of times that drugs are bad, 'cause I know."

From experience, Hutch thought sadly. The kid had seen both his birth parents high on drugs for the first six years of his life.

"My pop is a cop and he arrests drug dealers." David raised his head proudly. "Me, Aiden, and Jimmy Sweets were fooling around today after school when Brian came over. I told Brian that my pop was gonna get the guy sellin' weed at the school. Aiden got on his bus, but Jimmy started t'cry because he was scared that Brian would go to jail, too, 'cept kids don't go to jail. Do they?"

"Not for smoking marijuana," Hutch assured him, very glad that Mrs. Swenson did not interrupt.

"So he said my pop was a fag, and I told him to fuck off." David stressed the last two words with a hint of a grin.

"We'll talk about what kind of words are appropriate later." Hutch pinched the bridge of his nose, not sure whether to laugh at the kid's bravado or mourn the hardships he'd faced in life.

"And Brian hit you?" Mrs. Swenson asked faintly.

"Right in the mouth, and when he had me down, punched me in the eye." David removed the ice pack to reveal the full glory of his shiner. It was already mottled red and a deep purple color that highlighted his dark blue eyes. "So I kneed him. My dad teaches self-defense courses. That's what he said t'do if a bigger guy grabbed me…makes 'em fall right down. And it did."

Good ol' Starsky. Hutch almost laughed again, but schooled his expression into a somber one.

"I was…" Mrs. Swenson pursed her mouth so tightly that she looked lipless. "Unaware of the circumstances."

Obviously, Hutch wanted to say, but he wasn't about to lower himself to her petty level.

She picked up a heavy, old fashioned pen, the kind given at award ceremonies. "There have been a few other children disciplined lately for acting…peculiar, possibly inebriated or…what's the term?"

"Trippin'," David provided, helping himself to another lemon drop.

She nodded as if she really didn't want to. "For the last three weeks. One of the teachers did suggest that a boy seemed to be on an illegal substance, but I did not…" She sighed, apparently struggling to grasp the concept of grade school children using marijuana. "I refused to believe that this was possible."

"You need to deal with the here and now, Mrs. Swenson," Hutch said forcefully. "It happens all over the city. And ignoring drug usage doesn't make it go away. It just makes the dealers more powerful. The BCPD is looking for the dealer that my son has seen. However, there are probably more just like him, waiting to fill the void once he is arrested."

"Incomprehensible." Mrs. Swenson frowned. "Perhaps I have been remiss in dealing with the situation. However, I cannot condone violence on school property. You have to sign this sheet informing you of David's mandatory suspension."

"I will not sign that," Hutch said, glancing at David. "Though I agree that David should not have been brawling at all—at school, or anywhere else." David had the grace to look guilty. "However, a better way to stop this kind of thing is to do what you do best—" A little buttering up never hurt. "Teach. Form a peer group—with one of the teachers as a moderator, of course. The focus would be on learning about the dangers of drug use and presenting it to the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Kids often listen to other kids. As a consequence of fighting, David will be expected to participate fully—stay after school at least once a week to work with the group. And I can be a parent liaison with the police department."

David stared at Hutch with his mouth open and a look of absolute horror on his face. Hutch bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. David would have probably enjoyed the suspension a whole lot more, particularly if he got to stay at home alone. This was the kind of discipline that worked very well with him.

Mrs. Swenson looked intrigued and relieved. "Captain Hutchinson," she said with new respect in her voice, "I think that is an excellent idea."

"Tear that disciplinary suspension up, and we'll discuss the specifics of organizing the anti-drug group." Hutch patted David's knee.

David gulped, his eyes watering when he choked on the candy he'd swallowed.

Pounding him on the back, Hutch continued. "I would also like to discuss this incident with the Sweets family. And ask if they would give consent for Brian to make a statement about the drug dealer."

"I'll have to call Mr. Sweets," she said faintly, no longer resisting his command. "To get his consent. I feel that I may have as much to learn about this as the rest of the students."

"Do I have to?" David muttered, covering both eyes with the cold pack.

"Good, then we'll be able to work together as a united team." Hutch tried to sound excited about this, but he'd just painted himself into a corner. He didn't want to ever deal with the woman ever again, but David had three more years at the school, and he had to make nice. Starsky was going to laugh his ass off at this development.

"I've always meant to ask, what is your position at BCPD?" Mrs. Swenson asked quietly, writing some notes to herself.

"He's head of the citywide drug task force!" David announced, bouncing to his feet.


	6. six

Despite David's annoyance at having to stay in the principal's office an extra half hour, Hutch was very happy with the progress he and Mrs. Swenson made. They'd outlined a basic format for the anti-drug committee, to be called SAID: Students Against Illegal Drugs. The group would get under way in the new school year once the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays were over.

"That's gonna be so boring!" David groused, getting into the car. He threw his backpack on the seat and pressed the ice pack to his black eye with a dramatic sigh. "I already know drugs're bad. Why do I have to be on some dumb committee?"

"Did you consider the possibility that you have more insight and knowledge about drug use than most other kids your age?" Hutch flicked on the headlights. At nearly five pm, the sun was just dipping into the sea, and the twilight shadows made driving conditions difficult.

"I ain't gonna talk about…" David scowled and turned as far away from Hutch as he could in the confines of his seat belt. "That ain't happening."

"I don't expect you to give a detailed description of what happened when you were small," Hutch said, feeling guilty, even though he knew he shouldn't.

David hated large groups and he didn't make friends well, but something like the SAID group was almost tailor made for him. A subject he was actually passionate about.

"Pop!" David interrupted just as Hutch drove past the school and down Victory in the direction of Marshal Center. Steven's day care was two blocks up and six blocks over. "Stop!"

"David, we're already behind schedule and I still need to pick up Stev…"

"That's him!" David shouted, dropping the ice pack. "Stop!" He rammed his finger into the passenger car window. "What's his name? The drug dealer!"

"What?" Slowing down, while trying to keep an eye on the other cars on the road, Hutch caught sight of a tall, gangly man lopping down the sidewalk. The encroaching darkness made it hard to see the man's features clearly but Hutch believed David. He sure looked like Nolan Brice. "Damn."

His brain going straight into cop mode, Hutch grabbed the mic hanging from the dashboard. "Dispatch, this is Captain Hutchinson," he said urgently.

"Captain Hutchinson," a woman acknowledged. Good old Audrey, she'd manned the switchboard for years. "Go ahead."

"Reporting a known suspect, Nolan Brice heading east on Victory toward the cross street Normandy," Hutch said. The man was walking briskly, but not as if he was in any hurry. Hutch didn't want to park and risk Brice noticing him, and it was going to be difficult to tail him in a car on a suburban street without looking suspicious. "Does not appear to be armed. He's wanted for drug dealing and possession."

"Got that, Captain," Audrey replied.

"He's wearing a bluish jacket and jeans," David reported excitedly into the mic. "Same thing I seen him in before."

"That was the future BCPD cadet David Hutchinson," Hutch added, with a swell of pride that surprised him. He idled slightly longer than necessary at a stop sign to let Brice get farther up the block. "He's seen the suspect previously and can recognize him on sight."

"All cars in the vicinity of Victory and Normandy…" Audrey announced on all bands.

"Are you gonna arrest him?" David had his nose pressed against the window, his slight body tense with excitement. One hand clutched the door handle as if he wanted to jump out and chase down the criminals just like his fathers used to. Those old cases had been David's bedtime stories for years.

"Not unless backup…" Hutch drove past Brice because he couldn't keep inching the car down Victory any longer.

"Dispatch, this is Adam Six," the radio squawked. "ETA less than a minute."

"Good," Hutch muttered. The last thing he wanted to do was take out his weapon in front of David and shove Brice down on the cement as he would have years earlier with Starsky. He signaled a right onto the street that paralleled Normandy.

"Why're you turning?" David squeaked, his head swiveling to the rear window to keep Brice in sight. "He'll get away!"

Adam Six came around the corner neat, no lights or sirens, just a patrol car cruising the streets. Brice rabbited, dashing across Normandy toward Britanny at a dead run. Hutch swung a wide U-turn on Britanny, very thankful there were no other cars in the intersection, and cut off the fleeing suspect just as Adam Six pulled up with a single whoop of the siren.

Boxed in, Brice sprinted onto Victory Street, right into the path of an oncoming bus. One of the uniforms from Adam Six vaulted from the driver's side and tackled Brice inches from the wheels of the bus. Hutch could see the whites of the terrified bus driver's eyes as he stomped on his brakes, his horn blaring loudly.

"Man!" David exclaimed, shoving open the car door.

"David!" Hutch made a grab for him, but he was too late. The boy was already out and rounding the front of the car to watch Brice be handcuffed in front of an entire bus load of people. The stink of burned rubber wafted from underneath the bus's front wheels when Hutch got out of the car.

The second cop from Adam Six kept an eye on his partner, radioing in their arrest while the first one recited the Miranda in a monotone. Brice wasn't resisting in any way.

Affable, Hutch remembered. An affable guy who sold drugs to little children. It didn't make any sense.

"Pop! Did you see them do that?" David asked, panting slightly. There was something more than excitement in his voice, but Hutch couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. Admiration, but also a tremor of possible fear or…

Reluctance? Distress?

He didn't have time to dwell on it right then. "Officers? I'm Captain Hutchinson, from Metro. I called it in. Can I get a look at him?"

"Sure, Captain!" The first cop straightened, and in the brightness of the bus's headlights, Hutch could see his badge. J. Cahill.

"C'mon, douchebag," Cahill said to Brice, jerking lightly on the cuffs to help him stand. "Get up and look pretty for the Captain."

Faced with a real criminal, David inched slightly closer to Hutch but didn't take the hand that he held out.

When Brice saw him, he said, "Shit," very softly. Although it was near dark and the nearest street light was not close enough to provide adequate illumination, the dealer obviously recognized David.

With an enormous shudder that seemed to vibrate all the way down the metal sides, the bus roared to life and trundled past, a line of cars trailing behind. Each set of headlights swept over the little scene in the middle of the street and then past, providing a weird strobe effect.

"Yeah, that's him," David whispered to Hutch, his face pale oval in the darkness. "I saw him with Brian, holding some weed."

"And he's still holding!" Cahill brandished two small plastic baggies containing what looked like hand-rolled marijuana cigarettes. "Had them in his jacket pocket."

"He planted those on me!" Brice said without any real conviction to his lie.

"Good job, Cahill and…?" Hutch glanced at the older cop.

"Andy McGraw," the other man said, centering his regulation cap on his buzz cut.

"McGraw." Hutch nodded to him. "You two were there seconds after I put in the call. I was just over at the precinct earlier, talking to Lieutenant Deavers. He has Brice's rap sheet and particulars. This is a solid collar."

"Easiest one I've ever done!" Cahill said. "Get in the car, douchebag." He gave Brice a little shove.

"Hey, you don't need any rough stuff: I'm a peaceful guy!" Brice looked over at David with a resigned expression and ducked his head to avoid bumping it on the roof of the police cruiser.

"See you behind bars, Brice," Hutch called pleasantly, relieved that he hadn't had to participate in any way. He wasn't sure why, but he didn't want David to see him holding a gun, even though the first time he and David ever met, he'd been carrying, and David had taken a shot at him. Maybe that was why. Hutch glanced at his son and stepped back to give McGraw space to turn the cruiser around in the street.

David had both arms wrapped around himself, sucking on his swollen lower lip. Hutch ran a gentle hand through the tangled brown curls. David shied away the way he used to when he was much younger, and trudged slowly back to the car.

What was going through his head right now? This had to have dredged up buried memories. "Time to pick up Steven," Hutch reminded him. "Think we should run lights and sirens for the next five blocks?"

"No!" David blasted and then gulped in air as if he'd been suffocating. "I…I thought seeing him arrested would be cool, y'know, like a TV show. Like Miami Vice."

"You're too young be watching Miami Vice." Hutch got into the front seat and shifted around to watch David fasten his seat belt.

"I'm almost eleven," David said flatly.

"Next year," Hutch answered, because it was expected. "But that's not what you were about to say."

David gave a self-conscious shrug, picking at a thread on his jeans. He'd never put on a jacket for school and Hutch could see goosebumps on his arms. "It's nothing…" he trailed off. "Snotty'll be crying… Dad'll be wondering where we are. It's your night to make dinner."

"David?" Hutch asked softly, turning the key in the ignition. He flicked the headlights on. "You know you can talk to me any time." He started the car, pressing his foot lightly on the accelerator.

David didn't speak until they'd covered half the distance to Steven's daycare. "I used to see my other dad…He wasn't really my dad, he just told me t'call him that. Dwayne. I used to see Dwayne get arrested…" He hiccupped. "He always got out and then he'd beat the crap outta my mom."

What childhood memories. Hutch didn't say anything to interrupt the rare glimpse into David's past.

"He had drugs all over the house. D'you think that Brice is gonna get out and come after me now?" His voice quivered, but he didn't break down.

Hutch looked at David in the rear view mirror. With the bruised eye and swollen lip, he looked amazingly like he had four years ago when Hutch had found him guarding his dead mother with a Saturday night special. "You are my son, mine and Starsky's, and we will never let that happen. You are safe, do you understand?"

There was a long silence. It had taken years to convince David he had a real, loving family, and he still needed the occasional reminder. Not wanting to intrude, Hutch kept his eyes on the road, but was cheered when he heard the boy take a quick breath.

"Yeah," David said with conviction. He wiped the back of his hand across his nose, hiccupped again and awarded Hutch with a flash of a grin. "Can we get pizza for dinner?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starsky dropped his gym bag and lesson plans in the hallway leading to the family room, doing a little dance step of freedom on the hardwood floor. No kids until ten pm, and then it was only Lisa, who could get herself to bed without help after her shift at McDonald's.

Nothing but a long, leisurely evening alone with the man he loved. Cartoons and kid TV programs were banned for the night, along with any music written after 1979, maybe even after 1969. He wanted Hutch, a fantastic dinner, a bottle of expensive wine, something slow on the record player and a lot of hot sex. Not necessarily in that order.

Ignoring the piles of apples and sweet potatoes set aside for the Thanksgiving pies, Starsky toed off his sneakers and opened a bottle of red wine to let it breathe. He took some brie out of the fridge, unwrapping the creamy half moon of cheese so that it would come to room temperature. The next chore was slicing a crunchy baguette loaf to serve with the cheese. Starsky hummed Blueberry Hill all the while, and then checked on the steaks that had been marinating in red wine and pepper since morning.

After popping two potatoes into the oven to roast, Starsky had his Marshal Center Beavers T-shirt off before he even made it all the way to the bedroom. His jeans came off at the door of the bathroom and his red briefs right in front of the shower. He'd been coaching the Beavers basketball team all afternoon, not to mention the Winter show dance rehearsal in the morning. He smelled like a locker room.

The hot shower felt terrific, and Starsky tipped his head back, the pounding water plastering his hair to his scalp. Everything slipped away; the stress of the last week, having to take both Lisa and David in to the Sutter precinct to make statements against Nolan Brice, and dealing with the fallout at both schools from outraged parents. Turned out that not only was Brian Sweets using, he'd been sampling out of his father's liquor cabinet. As a result, Ed Sweets resigned suddenly from the PTA. Mrs. Swenson had suggested Hutch in his place, but Starsky was leery of such involvement. Just because she had made a complete 180 regarding the fact that Hutch lived with another man didn't mean that the rest of the PTA would be so accepting.

He wanted to wash all of that away, just like the sweat from his back. Brice was in jail, and that was the most important thing. He wouldn't be polluting the lives of any more kids, at least not for eight to fifteen years.

Closing his eyes, Starsky soaped himself up, letting the rushing water drown out all other sounds and thoughts. He slid open the shower door and reached blindly for a towel. A hand wrapped around his wrist, pulling him from the shower.

"What the hell are you…?" Starsky shouted, trying to wipe water out of his eyes. "Man, Hutch, give a guy a heart attack!" He wasn't talking about the sneak tactics.

Hutch was completely nude, wearing nothing but a huge grin. "I could have gotten out my handcuffs, but you're all wet, and they'd rust." Hutch ran one hand down Starsky's slick chest, flicking away large droplets.

"I'm dripping all over the floor. I'd prefer a towel." Starsky stepped nimbly away, grabbing one from the rack.

"Let me?" Hutch enveloped him in thick, white terrycloth. Starsky sighed, relaxing in Hutch's embrace. They'd splurged the previous Christmas on expensive towels, the kind they'd found at a resort in Hawaii. Hutch rubbed Starsky's arms with the thirsty cotton, very slowly drying him off with a luxurious massage. "Why don't we take this over to the bed?"

"Hutch, I got potatoes in the oven." Starsky was a little breathless, especially after Hutch grabbed a kiss.

"Then we have about an hour, right?" Hutch grinned fecklessly, and Starsky couldn't refuse. Hutch was so seldom this spontaneous, this light-hearted and free. He was the one who found it difficult to fit a sex life into their schedule. Starsky was happy to squeeze in a quickie once in a while—maybe on a day when Hutch could run home for lunch or that rare day when they were alone when the kids were all in school. But no—Hutch liked to plan in advance, to be sure that everything was just perfect with no chance of screw-ups.

While this night had certainly been planned, Starsky had never expected Hutch to come in unannounced and spring sex on him before they'd even eaten. The luxurious massage had produced erections on both of them; he could feel Hutch's butting him against his hip bone even through the thick towel.

"More'n enough time for me," Hutch said.

Starsky let Hutch back him toward the bed. The towel had dropped away by the time they were lying on the sheets. "I don't know about you, old man. Seems like the last time, it took you some time to get it up—Hey!" He yelped when Hutch pounced on him, using his larger body to squash Starsky into the mattress.

"Who's the old man in this relationship?" Hutch demanded, trapping him between two strong thighs and holding down Starsky's upper arms. "Who is coming up on his forty-first in about five months?"

"Me?" Starsky asked in a higher than normal register, not resisting. He cleared his throat, wiggling around a little to see how much space he had to move in. Hutch had him effectively pinned down. He loved the friction of his furry legs against Hutch's smoother skin. Hutch's body hair was blond and fine, like a baby's. It fascinated Starsky that a grown man could have such delicacy.

Hutch sat heavily on Starsky's hips and Starsky thrust upward, enjoying the sensation of Hutch's rod bouncing against his. Each time they came in contact, tingly zings raced across Starsky's skin and under his breast bone. "Actually, I feel more like sixty-nine," he said.

"Oh!" Hutch exclaimed with exaggerated surprise. "You don't have a wrinkle on you."

"I'll wrinkle you if you don't get off me!" This time, Starsky rocked his hips, dismounting his rider.

Hutch shouted with glee, going over on his side, and pulling Starsky with him. They lay, side by side, their lips all but touching. Other parts lower down were definitely touching. Starsky started a slow, lazy rhythm to increase the tactile stimulation.

"You want this?" Hutch breathed into Starsky's mouth, gently nipping his lower lip.

Starsky moaned, sucking Hutch into him, kissing him, becoming part of him, their bodies flowing together.

"Or sixty-nine?" Hutch mumbled, his lips locked against Starsky.

At least, it sounded like he said sixty-nine. Starsky wasn't entirely sure because the last thing he wanted to do was parse a sentence when Hutch was so hot and doing all the right things. Starsky's balls tightened in anticipation, and he hooked his leg over Hutch's to increase the delicious abrasion of erect cock against aroused cock.

"Starsky." Hutch pinched his nipple hard enough to get his attention.

"Ow! What'd you do that for?" Starsky rolled onto his back, glaring at his attacker. What kind of a guy interrupted a terrific moment like that one just before the grand finale? Starsky regarded his throbbing cock forlornly, the needy ache pushing in on him.

"I want it."

"Want what?" He was too damned close to climax to have to interpret every single damn thing Hutch said. His brain was fuzzy.

Hutch simply made a loop-di-loop in the air with that talented forefinger of his.

Stupefied, it took Starsky a beat longer than usual to read his partner and then he grinned, scrambling quickly into position, face between Hutch's legs. Hutch went high and Starsky went low, just as it should be. Starsky took Hutch's length into his mouth at the same time that Hutch enveloped Starsky's.

It was like being swept up into a hot, moist sauna—with teeth. Starsky gasped aloud when Hutch scraped his teeth lightly along the vein on the underside and then slurped his tongue across Starsky's sac.

"Hutch," Starsky said, pulling away from the thickness in his mouth, and murmuring against it. "What you do t'me." He knew very well that Hutch loved the way speech made his cock vibrate like a tuning fork during oral. He was gratified to feel Hutch's pulse racing against his lips and blew gently over the wet crown.

Hutch came hard and fast, his climax spilling Starsky over the edge, too. Starsky closed his eyes, prolonging the ecstasy by bearing down for a second to feel the throb intensify throughout his entire being. Hutch was holding their hands tucked between them when he resurfaced, wiped out and boneless.

"Can you hear the oven timer from here?" Hutch muttered when Starsky managed to turn himself around so that they were nose to nose again.

"Of course," Starsky assured him, closing his eyes for just a second. After all, he'd just had some of the best sex ever—for the month of November, that is.

The kitchen timer woke Hutch. He sat up, confused, expecting to hear Lisa's wails or Steven's shrieks. What the hell was that annoying buzzing bell?

"Get the potatoes." Starsky pushed at him with a sleep lax hand, burying his face in the pillow. "Now I have to shower again."

"What about me? I never showered at all." Hutch cast out a searching foot for his corduroy slippers. He didn't mind padding around the house nude, but there were hidden dangers when going barefoot. Like sharp Legos, pointy Barbie doll shoes, bits of rawhide dog bone buried under the throw rugs and the old cat ball with the bell in it that Hutch invariably stepped on, causing a loud jingle just when Steven had dropped off to sleep.

"I'm fast. Years of water rationing have seen to that." Starsky crawled out of the bed, giving Hutch a very fine view of his derriere. Hutch had some important plans for that butt later.

"Take out the potatoes, put on the steaks and join me!" Starsky yelled right before he disappeared into the bathroom.

"Wait for me!" Hutch ran down the hall so fast that Isis did the perfect arch of a Halloween cat and Bastet hissed at him. Chester was whining at the back door to be let in, but Hutch ignored him, yanking the hot brown potatoes out of the oven and replacing them with the steaks. He turned up the broiler and raced back to the bathroom in time to corner a wet slippery Starsky in the shower stall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You got the wine glasses?" Starsky asked, piling lots of butter and bacon bits on his baked potato. There were sautéed mushrooms to smother the steaks and a green salad, as well as French bread and brie.

"Where'd you get this?" Hutch tasted the wine before pouring a liberal amount in each glass. "I actually can detect hints of apple and oak." He took both glasses into the living room and returned, tightening the belt of his chenille robe.

"Maryanne's cousin's sister-in-law, or something like that, works for a wine salesroom. Apparently that brand, Silver Oak, usually sells for fifty dollars a bottle." Starsky handed Hutch his plate and carried his own into the seldom used living room.

"Fifty dollars?" Hutch stared at the bottle as if deciding whether to drink the entire thing or put it in the safety deposit box.

Starsky had had the same reaction. He laughed. "Luckily, I did not pay that much, Mr. Scrooge."

"Don't tell me, I don't want to kno…" Hutch said faintly. He sat down on the pale blue couch and wobbled, a strange expression crossing his face. Obviously off balanced, he lurched forward, the food on his plate threatening to roll right off. Starsky grabbed the plate when Hutch reached below the sofa cushion to retrieve whatever was underneath.

There were a whole row of small Transformer cars and trucks, lined up perfectly by size and the colors of the rainbow. Hutch rolled his eyes, laughing, and cleared the mini parking lot onto the floor. "Steven must have been playing under the cushions."

"Brilliant deduction. You ever consider a career in investigation?" Starsky took a drink of his wine so he wouldn't chuckle and ruin his own sarcasm.

"While I'm up, is there anything else in the kitchen that we need?" Hutch asked, rearranging the plush sofa cushions so that he could sit down.

"You're up?" Starsky leered at Hutch's groin, covered only by his pajama bottoms because his robe had come untied again. "Doesn't look like it from here."

"You've definitely been hanging around with David too much." Hutch flipped him the bird, and ate a quick forkful of steak and mushrooms.

"There's a stack of records by the turntable, knock yourself out." Starsky pointed to the ones he'd selected, and sampled more of the red wine. Just another benefit of not having the kids around, the freedom to get a little blitzed.

"An eclectic mix— some Jim Croce, Vic Rankin, the Grease soundtrack?" Hutch chuckled. "Sue Anne Granger and Raffi." He examined each album cover before sliding one of the records down the spindle and placing the needle on a song near the middle. "And here I was expecting Blueberry Hill." The smooth, slow notes of Blue Moon issued from the speakers.

"How the hell did Raffi get in there?" Starsky groaned, tasting his baked potato.

"It's Venus'." Hutch picked up his wineglass and swayed to the music, humming.

"I know that." Starsky stood, unable to resist the sight of Hutch actually dancing in time to the beat. "I meant to put it away."

Listening to the old song, it could have been 1968, the very first time he ever saw Ken Hutchinson in a bar. The night before they both went into the academy, Starsky had been contemplating his future, Hutch breaking away from his past. They'd found each other in their present.

"And Grease is probably Lisa's, unless I miss my guess." Hutch was looking right at him with a fond smile on his face. He put down the wine on the glass topped coffee table and held out his hand, singing "And then there suddenly appeared before me, The only one my arms will ever hold…"

Starsky pulled Hutch close, gliding him around in a circle, and didn't get stepped on once.  
"Blue moon…Now I'm no longer alone…" he joined his voice with Hutch's, singing the romantic ballad. Tucking his head against Hutch's cheek, Starsky let the music move through him, carrying them both along. As the last do-wah faded away, Starsky swept Hutch into a backbreaking dip and kissed him quickly, before he dropped him.

"Nobody dips like Ramon!" Starsky pulled him up, feeling a sharp twinge in his back. He was getting too old for moves like that. "But it didn't used to hurt so much." The next song on the album, Rock and Roll is Here to Stay started up.

"You're telling me!" Hutch rubbed his lower spine with a grimace. "I think you damaged something. Been a while, buddy."

"Since we danced?" Starsky tugged him back to the couch and their unfinished dinners. "You never used to dance with me."

"Since—any of this." Hutch waved his hand at the wine, music and good china. "Since we were by ourselves." He lowered himself more slowly onto the couch, pressing one hand into his back. "Last week just reminded me of how it used to be."

"Felt like we were working together, didn't it? Hunting down a drug dealer. And we caught the bastard." Starsky picked a mushroom off Hutch's plate, because they tasted so much better when he stole them, and popped it into his mouth.

Hutch retaliated by trying to stab his finger with a fork before shoveling some of the meat into his mouth. "We never did get to cruise the streets looking for Brice."

"You and David did that." Starsky sucked on his nearly fork-pierced finger, very aware of how Hutch watched him hungrily. "He handled all that crap so much better than he would have four years ago."

"Man, I'm so glad those days are over. He was such an angry, damaged kid." Hutch sat back with a pensive expression, his plate forgotten in his lap. "A lot of long nights getting David to go sleep."

"Somehow, that never changes. Only it's Lisa now. You brought him around—you're the reason he has any kind of a future." Starsky laid his arm along the back of the sofa, the way he'd once rested it on the back of the Torino's seats, so that his fingers just touched Hutch's neck. He didn't probe, didn't push, but he could sense there was something dark in Hutch's thoughts. Not exactly how he'd expected their evening alone to go. "Hutch?"

"I wonder what would have happened if…our lives had gone differently. For any of us."

"What brought this on? You don't usually ponder the what-ifs." Suddenly, the steak didn't taste good at all. Starsky swallowed, his belly twisting until he couldn't imagine eating another bite. "Hutch, tell me straight," Starsky said. "Do you—"

"What?" Hutch asked, obviously jolted out of wherever he'd been.

Having those blue eyes focused directly on him was like being caught in a spotlight. Starsky had to look away to collect his thoughts. "Do you—did you ever regret me taking Venus? Starting all this?"

"Starsk, I saw the look on your face that day. It was like you'd been…hit over the head, and all because of a tiny baby left in an Adidas bag." Hutch moved in closer until their thighs touched, from hip to knee. "I knew I'd been pushed aside for another women."

Starsky smacked him on the shoulder, trying hard not to laugh. "Asshole."

Hutch caught Starsky's hand, raising it to his lips. "No regrets—if I had, I would have said so long before this. I was more thinking along the lines of—where would our kids have ended up if they hadn't come to us? David…"

"Steven."

"Lisa, her dog. Those cats…Where exactly did they come from anyway?" Hutch pointed at Isis as the cat trotted through the room. "They're all just a natural progression of what we have become. A family."

"I always knew you were a mushbrain," Starsky leaned forward to get a kiss on the proper part of his anatomy. Hand kisses were fine for old ladies, but he wanted to suck Hutch's tonsils out. That took quite a while, involving many complicated positions and the loss of Hutch's robe, Starsky's Dave's Nude Furniture on Washington t-shirt and both of their pajama bottoms. Plates were dumped on the coffee table to make more space, and the wine forgotten when they had their hands full of each other.

Panting a little from exertion, Starsky was about ready to play hide the sausage with his partner when they both heard the sound of a car pulling up outside.

"Damn!" Hutch whispered in shock, groping for his blue pajamas. His lips were puffy from kissing and his pale hair was completely askew. "What the hell time is it? That must be Lisa. Kevin's mom was bringing her home."

"Foiled by the curfew again, Batman." Starsky was almost dumped on his ass as he scrambled for his clothes. He crammed them into a bundle and dashed naked into the kitchen just as keys rattled in the door lock.

"Lisa!" Hutch called out. "How was work tonight?"

Starsky listened while he was getting dressed. Hutch was lucky, his robe would cover the fact that his pajama bottoms had been pulled on hastily and were probably not tied. What a way to kill the mood.

"Hutch!" Lisa said excitedly. "I got to work on the cash register. The boss said I could. I could learn to push the keys, he said. Ring up French fries 'stead of making them. He said I could."

"Excellent," Hutch congratulated.

Starsky tugged down his t-shirt, his stomach reminding him that he hadn't eaten all of his dinner, and walked casually into the living room. "Did I hear you're getting a promotion, Lisa?"

"The boss said I could learn to push the keys on the cash register!" She was practically jumping in place, her blue eyes bright. "I'm so happy! Just in time for Thanksgiving. And I get a raise!"

"We're proud of you, sweetheart." Starsky gave her a little kiss on the forehead. She smelled like French fries. "You go on to bed now. Hutch and me are having a late dinner."

"I'm gonna read my Rick O'Shay book. To my mom up in heaven." Lisa waved at them, heading down the hall to her bedroom. "Poptarts for breakfast? Because it's Thursday. No oatmeal on Thursday, even on Thanksgiving."

"Right," Hutch said, his long fingers covering his mouth. He looked like he wasn't sure whether to laugh or die of humiliation. "Good night, Lisa."

"You're all pink cheeked." Starsky pinched Hutch's right cheek, happy despite the fact that he hadn't gotten laid. "Embarrassed at being caught necking?"

"I blush easily." Hutch looped his arms around Starsky, swaying to You're the One That I Want from the Grease soundtrack still playing on the record player.

"Kind of sums it all up, huh?"

"Me blushing, or wanting you?"

"Both," Starsky said. "Wanting all of it. Kids, chaos, distractions…"

"Life," Hutch agreed. "No what-ifs, ands, or butts." And smacked Starsky on his.

Starsky grinned. There was still time for future plans.

Fin


End file.
